President Donald Trump suffered a major blow as a federal judge on Monday urged his colleagues to have ICE agents testify in person.
The reason? Otherwise, they lie too much.
"A federal judge is encouraging his colleagues to call ICE officers in for live testimony on the witness stand, concluding that without direct scrutiny and cross-examination, routine lies will go unpunished," reported Politico's Kyle Cheney on Monday.
"An ICE officer fabricated facts in official records to justify an arrest," wrote Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai on Monday. "This Court knows this because at an evidentiary hearing on Plaintiffs’ Motion to Enforce Preliminary Injunction, he testified under oath that what he wrote in the official records of the arrest were incorrect. On the witness stand he minimized the error as mere oversight. This Court found he lied after evaluating his live testimony and the documentary evidence."
He added, "Evaluating live testimony is a time-tested method for truth finding. Written declarations are convenient, but insufficient on their own when witnesses are willing to lie. This enforcement action is a powerful reminder of two principles."
Kasubhai continued, "First, uncovering truth is not a passive activity. Developing a robust evidentiary record worthy of telling the story of what really happened can never fully materialize from a stack of signed written statements. Live testimony is necessary. Examination and cross-examination are necessary. The trial courts are the uniquely specialized forum in which building a full evidentiary record is possible."
He concluded his introduction by saying, "Second, this case underscores what happens if people were not called to testify under oath in a courtroom, if as a society we do not demand that government agents explain their actions and if the public fails to shine a spotlight on what is happening under cover — people with authority know they will not be held to account."
Near the end of his decision, Kasubhai made it clear that ICE has lied in cases beyond the scope of Oregon, where the case is set.
"Defendants conducted warrantless arrests without adequately making pre-arrest probable cause findings of escape risk," the judge wrote. "Documents failed to provide specific and individualized facts for probable cause. Errors in Defendants’ documentation range from typos to outright fabrications. Indeed, the sole ICE officer who testified admitted to falsely stating facts in official agency documentation about the basis for an arrest. There is no telling how many other agents in Oregon engaged in similar misconduct, which calls into question the veracity of all I-213 forms completed by ICE officers in Oregon. Based solely on the evidence presented in this case, Defendants have clearly violated the Court’s preliminary injunction order."
He then pointed out that "ICE does not act in Oregon alone, and its officers’ poor track record of documenting arrests spans the nation. Courts across the country have noted errors and falsehoods in ICE documentation."
In January, ICE agents in Minnesota shot and killed an unarmed US citizen named Renee Good.
In July, they shot and killed a Colombian national and asylum seeker named Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was also unarmed.
