As a Christian, it is a cornerstone of my faith that I work to protect the vulnerable. We are commanded in many places in the Bible to protect the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Deuteronomy 24:17 reads:
“You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice…”
And Leviticus 19:33 reads:
“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”
We must Abolish ICE
I am calling for the criminal prosecution of Jonathan Ross, Jesus Ochoa, Raymundo Gutierrez, Gregory Bovino, Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, and Donald Trump for Murder in the First Degree, and Crimes Against Humanity.
We must abolish ICE and prosecute its leadership for inflicting cruelty on our neighbors. It is one thing to demand the enforcement of the law, but it is another thing entirely to use militarized law enforcement to systematically oppress and brutalize any group of people – let alone a group we are commanded by God to protect.
ICE agents have murdered multiple American citizens in cold blood. They have attempted to murder others, who have survived. At the time of this post, 37 people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office for his second term. Good, innocent people are dying, repeatedly at the hands of a cruel regime engaged in systemic human rights abuses. The people responsible for these crimes against humanity and this tyranny must be brought to justice.
Every single act ICE has participated in must be investigated. The organization must be dismantled and its participants and leaders tried, convicted, and imprisoned for their crimes against our communities. I will not rest until I have justice for Daphy Michel, Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Marimar Martinez, Liam Ramos, and the thousands of other innocent lives destroyed by this evil institution.
We must expand pathways to citizenship!
We must pass a constitutional amendment which makes it clear that citizens and non-citizens are both covered under the same bill of rights, regardless of citizenship. Then, we need to create a sensible and fair pathway to citizenship for everyone. No more waiting decades. We must build a fast, secure, and easy pathway for the best humanity has to offer.
No one who comes to this country in good faith to build a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities should be denied a pathway to citizenship in the U.S., regardless of their supposed current “economic value." We are a nation of immigrants. We are all occupying stolen land.
Who are we to come in, conquer the space, declare it our own, and build a fence preventing others from access to the garden? Surely if we want to grow our garden, our culture, our peoples, our achievements, and our accomplishments, we should be selecting not for the richest among us, but for those of us who are striving the most towards progress and success.
We are all due the right to a rich life, regardless of where we come from. In my opinion, if you come here to work in my community to build with me, to live with me, to break bread with me, then brother come; then sister come; then aunties and uncles come; I love you, I accept you, and I want you here. Let us celebrate life together.
We must reform "qualified immunity"!
We must end qualified immunity for all law enforcement and government employees nationwide and replace it with a more reasonable test.
The social contract of this legal doctrine required the trust from the public that the government would use their monopoly on violence in the best interests of justice and public safety. Instead, the government has participated in repeated, targeted cruelty, tyranny, and oppression against the most vulnerable populations in our society.
The government has lost the public’s trust in their responsible and ethical use of force, and thus has forfeited their privileges of legal immunity. We, the people, have a right to strip this doctrine from the law.
“Qualified Immunity” is used as a blanket excuse to protect abusers who repeatedly break protocol and the law, and endanger their fellow officers and colleagues on an ongoing basis. This is because qualified immunity is assumed rather than granted. That means there has to be overwhelming evidence for it to be revoked. It sometimes gets revoked, but it is so difficult to prosecute that most prosecutors don’t even try. This loophole creates opportunities for abusers who want to exploit the system so that they can prey on others.
That said, I understand our members of law enforcement need legal protections so they can do their jobs safely. I don’t want to compromise this at all, but the immunity presumed is much too great. We can replace it with sensible measures that protects the officers who are acting in good faith – even if their actions are sometimes misunderstood by the public – and that targets and eliminates abusers from the system. To be clear, very few people have a problem with the concept of “law enforcement.” If you respect the law, you want enforcement. But accountability matters. Holding irresponsible people accountable for their actions matters. Holding the very few abusers in the system accountable matters.
I will work to end qualified immunity and replace it with the concept of “reasonable immunity” in which a series of tests are evaluated to determine if immunity should be granted. Under this legal doctrine, immunity is not assumed. In fact, there is an assumption that immunity should not be granted. The first of these test is simply this:
Given the actions in question, the training of this officer, the policies and procedures this officer was trained on, and the situation this officer was involved in, would a reasonable person take the same actions in the same circumstances?
That’s it. This question can be adjudicated during a pre-trial process by a grand jury of the officer’s peers. It doesn’t need to be a complex thing. It would be similar to a grand jury subpoena except the question isn’t “is there enough evidence to go to trial?” but rather the question is “should the officer be granted reasonable immunity?” – The public overwhelmingly supports good police and good policing and will protect good officers. So if the outcome is that grand jury process is that reasonable immunity is granted, then it was granted by a jury of community members who all agree that the action taken was reasonable and does not need to go to trial. Similarly, if the action was seen as unreasonable, then it is a community jury of peers who have made that assessment fairly.
This is a sensible and safe change to the law and legal system which benefits everyone involved. It protects police who are acting in good faith, and it hunts out and exposes abusers who aren’t acting in good faith. Everybody wins.
Thus, in any case where the actions of someone are deemed to be unreasonable under these tests, immunity will NOT be granted to the government official. We will target all government employees with this law.
Establish a Nationwide Law Enforcement Database!
I will codify civil and criminal penalties for law enforcement officers and government officials who repeatedly and willfully violate the civil rights of others. I will work to establish a publicly available, searchable, and indexable Nationwide Law Enforcement Database. This database will contain the names, ages, departments, training, certifications, records of heroism, and records of misconduct, as well as every public complaint filed against the officer alleging misconduct and details about the resulting investigation and its resolution.
We will expose the officer’s entire career history – both good and bad. This database will be used to celebrate, decorate, and highlight our heroes in law enforcement while also working to root out the abusers who threaten the public safety, exploit the public’s trust, and endanger their fellow officers through their actions.