Newsrooms on the Left with distinct political leanings have increasingly attempted to shape public perception by misrepresenting the legal powers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Some liberal media outlets, seeking to influence the national conversation on immigration, have misleadingly insisted that ICE agents must obtain a judicial warrant before making the arrest of an illegal alien. Some of their followers have gone as far as boldly claiming that ICE has never possessed the legal authority to even make the arrests at all. Neither assertion is true.
The Gateway Pundit spoke to Raymond Orzel, who once served as the inaugural director and Executive Co-Chair of the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and as a Senior Special Agent at ICE, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
“Local police officers are not required to obtain a warrant when they come across someone committing a crime in a public space, and the same applies to ICE agents,” Orzel said. He pointed out that under Section 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE officers “clearly” possess the authority to arrest aliens without needing a judicial warrant.