Democratic members of Congress who were part of a scuffle with law enforcement officers at an ICE facility in New Jersey may face arrests, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Axios Saturday.
Why it matters: It would be a major escalation in the Trump administration’s arrests of politicians and other public servants, including the mayor of Newark and a judge in Milwaukee.
- DHS is accusing the House Democrats of assaulting law enforcement. The lawmakers say they were the ones who were assaulted.
- The lawmakers involved in the incident: Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) and LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.).
Is there no immunity of parlamentarians in the US? Not a rhetoric question, I just don’t know.
Unless they’re on their way to a session of Congress (in which case they get to ignore a multitude of vehicular laws), not really LEGALLY. De facto, they’ve been immune from prosecution in a lot of cases (and moreover immune to actual consequences) because congresspeople are, by and large, wealthy, white, and male.
If there is there shouldn’t be. Things like diplomatic immunity are terrible and should not exist.
Would you mind to elaborate? That fact that you think something was “terrible” is not an argument. I think, you don’t really have an idea how immunity actually works. It’s not synonymous to “impunity”.
Sure - someone with diplomatic immunity shouldn’t get to break any law they want without facing any consequences.