In a decisive move to safeguard the rights of U.S. citizens against immigration enforcement overreach, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has introduced a resolution cementing the undeniable fact: ICE has zero authority to arrest, detain, interrogate, or deport those who hold U.S. citizenship, the Senator's Office reported. This measure seeks to reinforce existing legal boundaries and quell the mounting concerns arising from recent events that suggest otherwise.
"ICE exists to enforce immigration law, so it should be a no-brainer: U.S. citizens can't be detained by ICE. But in Trump's America, citizens are being thrown into detention centers just because of how they look to meet an arbitrary quota, it's outrageous and illegal," Senator Gallego said, as outrage bubbles over cases in Arizona where citizens found themselves entangled in an agency's web that should not have ensnared them in the first place. According to the Senator's Office press release, this resolution emanates from a moral and legal standpoint that the Senate must project an unwavering stance against these perilous missteps.
The resolution sprouts from a gnarly root of incidents where American citizens were reportedly subjected to wrongful arrests and detentions, an affront to their constitutional rights, and a clear divergence from ICE's own internal guidance which expressly stipulates that, "As a matter of law, ICE cannot assert its civil immigration enforcement authority to arrest and/or detain a U.S. citizen," as stated by the Senator's Office. The deeply embedded notion that a U.S. citizen is beyond the scope of deportation under national law adds a layer of gravity to Senator Gallego's legislative push.
