Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has told a right-wing radio host that thereās only one tool the state isnāt using to stop migrants from crossing the border into Texas: gun violence, because it would prompt a response from the pesky federal government.
āThe only thing that we are not doing is weāre not shooting people who come across the borderābecause, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder,ā the Republican governor toldĀ former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch on her radio show last week.
What law says that?
Can you provide something that says he can? Letās see it.
The US constitution? The President can do really anything they want within the law. Thereās no really reason The President canāt arrest people.
Anyone can do whatever they want within the lawā¦ā¦
No they canāt. And arresting people is simply not in their purview.
For folk in the States itās a mix of the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution with mostly individual state laws determining the validity of what constitutes an officer of the law and how a citizen arrest works as part of that individual Stateās Criminal code.
If youāre Canadian itās federal law 494 of the Criminal Code.
To be honest itās really bloody difficult trying to accurately cite US law in discussion because States have a frankly ridiculous amount of binding power on their citizens which means there are 50+ laws about how exactly citizen versus peace officer arrest is handledā¦ But most of them outline fairly specific limitations like it whether a citizenās arrest can be applicable for misdemeanors, restrictions on what constitutes a reasonable use of force, rights of an arrested person, what constitutes a humane restriction of person and the requirement of validating the arrest with a judge within a certain time periodā¦ You know Haebeous Corpus and all that.
Bidenās Presidential powers probably give him a lot of extra leeway against laws that would persecute him for doing an improper citizenās arrest but that wouldnāt make an improper arrest stick any more than if you did it. A President is still legally a citizen and not a law enforcement officer.
Iām sorry, do you think we need a law that says the President canāt personally arrest people?
Yikesā¦ Read a book.