After New York Metropolis comptroller Brad Lander this week grew to become the newest outstanding Democrat to be arrested whereas monitoring and protesting US immigration authorities, the Trump administration trotted out a well-recognized chorus to justify his detention.
The mayoral candidate had “assaulted” regulation enforcement, the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) asserted, warning “in case you lay a hand on a regulation enforcement officer, you’ll face penalties”.
The accusation, which DHS has additionally lately leveled in opposition to a member of Congress and a high-profile union chief, have sparked consternation, notably as movies of the incidents didn’t present the officers attacking officers and as an alternative captured officers’ aggressive habits and manhandling of the officers.
In a number of instances, DHS’s public accusations of assault weren’t adopted by felony expenses. Civil rights advocates and students on policing say the federal government’s assault claims in opposition to well-known members of the opposing social gathering, and the repetition of these accusations, nonetheless are troubling indicators of rising authoritarianism. They argued the US authorities is blatantly misrepresenting occasions captured on footage in an effort to intimidate highly effective officers and abnormal residents alike who search to problem the White Home’s insurance policies.
And Alec Karakatsanis, the founding father of Civil Rights Corps, a nonprofit authorized advocacy group, argued: “By relentlessly telling the inhabitants that ‘two plus two equals 5’, it helps decide who’s prepared to associate with ‘two plus two equals 5’ and deny primary truths.
“It’s additionally a few longer-term and extra profound assault on the very notion of reality – to get individuals so confused that they don’t know what’s what,” stated Karakatsanis, writer of Copaganda, a guide about false narratives promoted by police.
“That is the traditional propaganda tactic of George Orwell’s 1984,” he added
Lander was arrested by federal brokers inside an immigration courtroom constructing on Tuesday, as he requested officers whether or not they had a judicial warrant to detain an immigrant he was accompanying. He was launched after 4 hours, and to this point, no expenses have been filed in opposition to him.
Video of the encounter reveals plainclothes officers, some in masks, pinning Lander to a wall, handcuffing him and escorting him away. Lander had held on to the arm of the immigrant who was being focused.
Nonetheless, DHS assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, stated in a press release to the press and on social media quickly after the incident that it was Lander who had assaulted officers.
The accusations echo these in opposition to US congresswoman LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, who, DHS claims, assaulted and impeded regulation enforcement when she and two different representatives arrived at a privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention middle to examine the ability on 9 Could. Representatives are licensed to conduct this oversight with out prior discover, and McIver stated she needed to make sure the ability was clear and secure and detainees had entry to their attorneys.
Shaky movies of the encounter, some launched by DHS, confirmed a chaotic scrum the place McIver and others have been surrounded by officers, some masked, as regulation enforcement and the consultant pushed in opposition to one another. Quickly after, she was given a tour of the ability, however a month later was indicted for assault, a cost she has strongly denied.
In Los Angeles, David Huerta, president of the Service Staff Worldwide Union (SEIU) of California, was arrested on 6 June when he confirmed as much as doc an immigration raid at a garment manufacturing unit. As he stood exterior, blurry footage confirmed officers pushing him to the bottom, with a number of brokers on high of him as he was put in handcuffs.
US attorneys charged him with conspiracy to impede an officer. He was not charged with assault, however even after the criticism was filed, DHS has continued to reply to questions on his case with a press release that claims: “Huerta assaulted Ice regulation enforcement.” Huerta was hospitalized after his arrest, earlier than being transported to jail.
And final week, California senator Alex Padilla was handcuffed and forcibly faraway from a DHS press convention as he tried to ask a query, with the FBI accusing him of “resisting” regulation enforcement. He was not charged with against the law.
In a press release to the Guardian on Thursday, McLaughlin stated Democratic politicians have been “contributing to the surge in assaults of our Ice officers by way of their repeated vilification and demonization of Ice”, including: “This violence in opposition to ICE should finish.”
DHS has repeatedly asserted in latest weeks that it has seen a serious improve in assaults on its officers. Since Could, the division has typically cited the declare that Ice officers, who’re a part of DHS, are dealing with “a 413% improve in assaults in opposition to them”.
Spokespeople for DHS have repeatedly refused to reply to questions concerning the supply of the statistic, what number of assaults have occurred and what time intervals it was evaluating. In April, a press launch had referred to a “300% surge in assaults”.
McLaughlin, of DHS, stated in an electronic mail late Thursday that Ice officers have been “now dealing with a 500% improve in assaults”, however once more didn’t reply to inquiries concerning the determine.
‘Everyone seems to be in danger’
Some specialists on US regulation enforcement stated DHS’s narratives have been rooted in a protracted legacy of regulation enforcement demonizing its critics, although the Trump administration’s claims appeared more and more brazen of their deviation from the reality.
Andrea J Ritchie, co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization, a gaggle of organizers that advocates in opposition to incarceration and different types of criminalization, stated US regulation enforcement has steadily prosecuted individuals who had been abused and injured by officers. “What number of movies exist of cops yelling, ‘cease resisting’, whereas somebody has their arms up and the cops are beating them?” she stated. Civil rights legal professionals who tackle police misconduct instances typically check with the “trifecta” of expenses – resisting arrest, assault on an officer and obstruction of justice, she stated: “The tougher you get overwhelmed, the extra doubtless you’ll get these expenses.”
What’s new below Donald Trump, she stated, was the frequency of those sorts of accusations in opposition to high-profile figures.
Alex Padilla, a Democratic California senator, is pushed out of the room as homeland safety secretary Kristi Noem holds a information convention relating to the latest protests in Los Angeles on 12 June 2025. {Photograph}: David Crane/AP
Lauren Regan, an Oregon-based civil rights lawyer who has represented activists dealing with prosecution, stated she noticed arresting elected officers as a part of an “authoritarian playbook” designed to make individuals broadly afraid that they, too, could possibly be focused, no matter their backgrounds.
“You retain it chaotic and random so nobody thinks they’re secure,” stated Regan. “When elected officers with privilege, energy, schooling and coaching get thrown to the bottom and cuffed or jailed, then what will occur to us? Everyone seems to be in danger.”
It’s some extent that wasn’t misplaced on Padilla, who stated after his detention: “If they’ll do that to a United States senator who has the audacity to ask a query, simply think about what they’re doing to so many individuals throughout the nation.”
Certainly, because the latest protests in opposition to immigration raids started in LA, tons of of demonstrators in southern California have been arrested by native police. Federal prosecutors have formally charged a handful of them assaulting officers – although quickly after moved to dismiss two of the primary instances they filed.
In an incident of two protesters arrested at a 7 June demonstration, a video of the chaotic scuffle confirmed one of many protesters being shoved by an agent simply earlier than the arrests, and officers taking each protesters to the bottom. US prosecutors charged each males with assaulting officers, however filed a movement to dismiss the fees every week later after one in every of them advised the Guardian he had not attacked the brokers, and was himself severely injured within the confrontation.
Others have been blasted by DHS amid immigration enforcement actions in LA. Final week, the Los Angeles Occasions printed video of border patrol brokers detaining a 29-year-old US citizen exterior his automotive restore store. Within the footage, the person repeatedly stated he was an American citizen, however an agent pushed him right into a steel gate. He was finally launched. After the LA Occasions printed a narrative documenting rising “fears of racial profiling”, DHS despatched out a press launch calling it “faux information”, together with a screenshot of video of the person’s arrest, and saying: “THE FACTS: “The info are a US citizen was arrested as a result of he ASSAULTED US Customs and Border Safety Brokers.”
DHS didn’t reply to the Guardian’s questions asking for clarification on what constituted assault in these incidents, as an alternative re-sending the statements it had initially posted and shared on social media within the instant aftermath of the arrests.
Alex Vitale, sociology professor and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Challenge at Brooklyn School, stated that whereas the general public thinks of “assault” as inflicting damage, within the context of arrests and prosecution, it may be a “nebulous class” that features “undesirable bodily conduct”.
Instances can drag on for months, he added, irrespective of the power of the proof the federal government is presenting: “Police perceive that the arrest and the method is the penalty even when there’s no conviction in the long run.”
‘They’re making an attempt to fabricate actuality’
Mike German, a former FBI agent and fellow with the Brennan Middle for Justice, a nonprofit, stated that the federal government’s repeated misinformation about violence in opposition to officers dangers backfiring: “Officers do at instances get assaulted, but when companies proceed to make patently false claims and counsel that any bodily contact is an assault, you’re going to undermine respectable instances.”
He stated he was additionally involved concerning the impacts of officers utilizing heavy power in arrests that don’t require it: “Three or 4 brokers tackling a US senator clearly isn’t essential. That form of power compels resistance. It’s arduous to let your self be violently attacked with out your pure response of making an attempt to defend your self, after which if officers say that’s assault, that undermines public belief.”
Ritchie, writer of Invisible No Extra, a guide about police violence in opposition to girls of shade, stated she was not shocked that out of the latest outstanding arrests, the one politician who continues to be prosecuted for assault is McIver: “Black girls get punished for talking up and it’s framed as assault.”
She stated it was essential that communities proceed to forcefully reject regulation enforcement narratives: “They’re making an attempt to fabricate actuality. It’s upon us to say the federal government is mendacity to us. This can be a message they’re making an attempt to ship and we’re not accepting it and positively not normalizing it.”
