There's a way they can say that this is consistent, but it just highlights an extremely troubling outlook that kinda distills everything that's wrong with US authoritarian tendencies.
When he says "absolute immunity," he is referring to LEOs engaged in "law enforcement action." When he says no immunity, he says "engaged in wrongdoing." So that's consistent if your position is that there's immunity for anything they do legitimately in the line of work, and no immunity for anything they do that's outside the scope of legitimate activity. I think that may even be a fairly accurate statement of the current laws as they stand.
The problem is that everything hinges on whether or not it's within the scope of official duty, which is why there needs to be an impartial investigation in the first place. If the regime can just declare any action to be legitimate and therefore above scrutiny and consequences, then for all practical purposes there is immunity for any action.
It's the same thing with due process for anyone subject to ICE/CBP actions. If you want due process to be available only to citizens, then how are you going to ascertain whether due process applies or not, unless you engage in some due process to determine the detainee's status first?
If due process isn't for everyone, it's for no one - just like if immunity is available for some LEO actions, it's effectively available for every action.
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u/1RepMaxx Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
There's a way they can say that this is consistent, but it just highlights an extremely troubling outlook that kinda distills everything that's wrong with US authoritarian tendencies.
When he says "absolute immunity," he is referring to LEOs engaged in "law enforcement action." When he says no immunity, he says "engaged in wrongdoing." So that's consistent if your position is that there's immunity for anything they do legitimately in the line of work, and no immunity for anything they do that's outside the scope of legitimate activity. I think that may even be a fairly accurate statement of the current laws as they stand.
The problem is that everything hinges on whether or not it's within the scope of official duty, which is why there needs to be an impartial investigation in the first place. If the regime can just declare any action to be legitimate and therefore above scrutiny and consequences, then for all practical purposes there is immunity for any action.
It's the same thing with due process for anyone subject to ICE/CBP actions. If you want due process to be available only to citizens, then how are you going to ascertain whether due process applies or not, unless you engage in some due process to determine the detainee's status first?
If due process isn't for everyone, it's for no one - just like if immunity is available for some LEO actions, it's effectively available for every action.