Swalwell and Goldman propose bill to remove ICE officers’ immunity protections

Democrat Representatives Eric Swalwell, from California, and Dan Goldman, from New York, are planning to introduce legislation that would remove qualified immunity protections for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

 The bill, announced Friday and called the ICE OUT Act, comes amid a nationwide debate over whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Officer Jonathan Ross was justified in the fatal shooting of 37-year-old anti-ICE activist Renee Nicole Good on Wednesday, after she accelerated toward him in an SUV.

Though conservatives, including top Trump administration officials, argue that Ross had reason to believe his life was in danger as the car approached, therefore justifying his use of force as self-defense, many on the left believe Ross should face prosecution for Good’s tragic death.

The bill would limit when ICE agents could claim legal immunity for actions taken while on duty, as lawmakers claim the current legal standard gives federal officers overly broad protections when acting within the scope of their duties.

 

Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Goldman (D-N.Y.) further explained the bill and its context on the podcast, “The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent.”

Goldman argued that under the current protections, the officer responsible for Good’s death would be able to avoid prosecution on grounds that are too subjective.

“Basically, what the officer is going to say would be that, ‘I personally, subjectively, myself believed that she was driving her car right at me and using her car to try to run me over, and therefore I had to shoot her in self-defense,’” he said. “And because the standard is subjective and it allows for the officer’s own view to carry a lot of weight, it will be very difficult for him to be prosecuted with the current status of qualified immunity.”

 

He clarified that the law would only apply to civil enforcement officers, “not criminal enforcement officers who are dealing with real bad guys.”

The bill would create an “objective standard” that “narrows and identifies what the ‘duties and responsibilities’ defense is,” Goldman said.

Goldman asserted, “ICE agents are not allowed to arrest citizens, and they are not allowed to arrest anyone for criminal violations such as obstruction of justice. Their only authority is to investigate and civilly arrest immigrants for immigration violations.”

 

Title 18 U.S. Code section 1503 criminalizes any actions that obstruct or impede the due administration of justice. Title 8 U.S. Code section 1357 grants immigration officers broad powers to interrogate, arrest, and search any person for any offense against the U.S. committed in their presence, or if they have reasonable grounds to believe a person has committed or is committing a felony.

Goldman argued that the federal officers in Minneapolis should not have been in a situation in the first place where they needed to ask Good to get out of her car.

“It doesn’t look like, from the video, that she was doing anything that was obstructing them,” he said.

 

Good and her wife, Rebecca Good, were active participants in a local “ICE Watch” network. In a press conference, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explained that these groups often use whistles and create barricades to alert residents to the presence of immigration officers and disrupt their operations. Surveillance footage obtained by CNN revealed that Good had her car parked perpendicular across the road for several minutes, while the officer’s cell phone recording showed Rebecca following and taunting officers.

“Renee Good was a mom of three kids. And if you looked at her glove compartment, which has been photographed and shared, you don’t see a weapon, you don’t see a knife, you don’t see a gun. You see what we as parents call ‘stuffies,’ stuffed animals. You see a little cup of Cheerios. She’s not a domestic terrorist,” Swalwell emphasized. “She was there to hold to account and bear witness to the atrocities that ICE is committing in our communities. And she should be alive today.”

Swalwell asserted, emphatically, that President Trump has deployed “mother-murdering thugs into our community.”

Asked by the host if he would be willing to “dramatically limit” funding for immigration officers, Swalwell answered, “I wouldn’t vote to give them a penny under what they’re doing right now.”

The California lawmaker continued, “We were promised that the most violent in our community would be targeted. … As a former prosecutor, I imagine that we all agree with that: Get violent criminals out of our community. That’s not what they’re doing. They’re chasing people through the fields and factories where they work. They’re going to churches, they’re going to schools, they’re terrorizing people who are here with all of their documents.”

Goldman concurred, floating the idea of ICE being “dramatically and overwhelmingly revamped” even if it means that “ICE is eliminated and a new agency is stood up to start from scratch.”