The brutality of ICE and CBP’s occupation of Minneapolis and St. Paul isn't sitting well with most Americans. The wanton violence, terrified children being detained, and now two fatal shootings —including the execution of Alex Pretti with a bullet to the back as he knelt on the ground. ICE, most Americans believe, has gone too far.
This instinct isn’t just right morally, it’s right legally, too. All of these tactics go way beyond the limits our Constitution sets on law enforcement and the federal government. From America's founding, our Constitution protected those rights that held the line between democracy and dictatorship. After the Civil War, when it was clear that the Bill of Rights wasn’t enough, the nation enacted new Amendments to expand our freedoms.
I decided to look into just how federal immigration officers are violating people’s rights in the Twin Cities. Constitutional violations are a daily occurrence, in numbers impossible to count. From violations of the First Amendment’s protections of free speech to the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, the daily violations could be in the thousands.
I attempted to explain all the ways the Trump administration has attempted to suspend the Constitution in Minnesota. I even had to brush up on the 10th Amendment, which guarantees state sovereignty in areas reserved to the state, and the ways in which the Trump administration appears to be using force to try to take that sovereignty away. Finally, I learned about the history of the 14th Amendment, how its drafters were trying to end state terror directed at Black people in their communities. It sounded eerily like Minnesota today.
—Pema Levy
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