US cops offered new ICE ‘insurance’ scheme against misconduct charges

Cops willing to work with Trump’s violent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs are being offered a new insurance scheme to protect them from misconduct charges. The scheme would cost officers $250 a year, but that cost would be reimbursed.

CNN reported on 18 August:

The agency is proposing to subsidize liability insurance for state and local officers who are trained and deputized to enforce federal immigration laws, according to a planning document published Friday.

It is hoped that the coverage would encourage police departments to join up with ICE in its often violent anti-immigrant operations:

ICE’s partnerships with local departments have soared since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year and may get an additional boost with liability insurance by removing a hurdle that has made some local police departments reluctant to join.

The scheme would provide:

up to $500,000 in personal liability, which typically funds legal fees, settlements and judgments.

ICE’s accountability problem

Critics have warned this was another way to shield state agents from accountability. Cato Institute director of immigration studies David Bier told CNN:

The concern here is that ICE is going above and beyond to guarantee law enforcement does not have even the slightest risk of liability for violating Americans’ rights while helping ICE arrest people.

The relationship between the enforcement body and regional police forces has deepened in Donald Trump’s second term. ICE has offered:

generous financial incentives to participating local agencies, increasing the number who have partnered with the federal government, as well as the number of arrests.

CNN estimated:

Nearly 1,600 agencies in 32 states now have agreements to participate in ICE’s task force model, in which trained local officers can interrogate, arrest and charge people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to ICE data.

Federal officers (like the FBI) usually enjoy “legal immunities” and “government-funded defense” against lawsuits:

But those protections may not always apply to local officers, which has heightened their concerns over liability and the need for insurance.

The ICE-police planning document can be read here. It seeks:

to reduce the risk by saying local officers performing ICE-authorized functions are “acting under color of federal authority,” which would bar lawsuits against individual officers.

The authorities clearly hope this new scheme will see cops reinforcing ICE operations around the US. In effect, the Trump administration wants to use cops as a force multiplier in its mission to racially purify the United States. In that sense, the move is entirely in keeping with the Trumpian worldview.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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