Subject: Re: January 6, Part Deux
Police could arrest them for breaking and entering if they don’t show a judicial warrant when called by a resident to the scene of an illegal ICE enforcement action. Or, police called to the scene could arrest ICE officers for the malicious destruction of property if they break into a vehicle to extract a driver.

They could, and then ICE could arrest them for forcibly interfering in their operations. And the state cops would probably lose, and ICE would probably win. Because the remedies against LEO's conducting a search or entry without a warrant almost never include criminal charges....and state cops should know that. The remedies if law enforcement goes too far in damaging property during an arrest/detention are also civil, not criminal. The remedies are not criminal, but post-search sanctions (typically striking the evidence obtained) and civil lawsuits under Section 1983.

It's a losing proposition. Most of what ICE is doing is awful but lawful, and even though I agree they are way across the line in using administrative warrants rather than judicial ones for entry they're going to have the DOJ on the record as saying it's a defensible position. In that contest between state authorities and ICE, it would be the state authorities that would be breaking the law.

Defending habeas corpus can mean policing the violations of laws that enable the violation of habeas corpus. The only thing necessary is state political leadership willing to confront the federal abuse of power by deploying the instruments of power at its disposal.

They don't have instruments of power to confront the federal abuse of power. The Supremacy Clause means that states can't interfere with federal agencies or their officers. States can refrain from using their own resources to enforce federal laws, but they cannot lawfully stop the federal government from using its own resources to do so. States can - and have - gone to federal court to seek judicial relief in civil suits when they believe the federal government has gone beyond their legal remit. But they do not have any legal justification to resort to self-help and start having their own LEO's arrest federal officials when there is a dispute over whether the federal government is following the law or not.