by: George Rasley, CHQ Editor
Judge Jennifer L. Thurston, a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of California, appointed by President Joe Biden (naturally), has issued an injunction preventing the U.S. Border Patrol in that district from making most warrantless arrests of illegal aliens.
According to Leftwing news site Cal Matters, “The ruling came in response to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed after the El Centro Border Patrol traveled to Kern County to conduct a three-day sweep in January, detaining day laborers, farm workers and others in a Home Depot parking lot, outside a convenience store and along a highway between orchards.”
As part of the order, Thurston held that “Border Patrol is enjoined from conducting detentive stops in this District unless, pre-stop, the detaining agent has reasonable suspicion that the person to be stopped is a noncitizen who is present within the United States in violation of U.S. immigration law, as required by the Fourth Amendment,” and that “Border patrol is enjoined from effecting warrantless arrests in this District unless, pre-arrest, the arresting agent has probable cause to believe that the noncitizen being arrested is likely to escape before a warrant is obtained.”
BTW, this is the same Judge Jennifer Thurston who defied President Trump’s pardon of J6er Benjamin Martin, and also upheld California’s SB 132, allowing males in female prisons. Thurston’s Senate confirmation was contested by Republicans, with strong opposition by Senator Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the then-Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee, resulting in a confirmation 46-24 vote.
The upshot, claimed Leftwing American Immigration Council attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, is a “significant injunction in the Eastern District of California, barring the Border Patrol from stopping people without reasonable suspicion that they’re in the country illegally and barring warrantless arrests without probable cause of escape without a warrant (as required by law).”
Except Mr. Reichlin-Melnick is intentionally misrepresenting the law, just as Judge Thurston is intentionally misconstruing it in her order.
As Senator Mike Lee observed in a post to X, Border Patrol has authority to arrest suspected illegal aliens without a warrant, as long as they have probable cause.
Judge Thurston ordered Border Patrol not to do that, even though it’s specifically authorized to do so under 8 U.S.C. § 1357
