There is no more powerful tool than transparency to ensure that any government agency upholds the law.
And, likewise, nothing undermines the credibility of the government — especially law enforcement, — or breeds distrust and allows for evading justice like purposely concealing information from the public.
It was welcome and overdue news this week that immigration police will all be issued body cameras by September. As is too often the case the news was tempered by details making clear the Trump administration is unable to handle the project responsibly.
It’s an immutable law of society that Donald Trump and his administration either cannot fathom or just purposely disregard, to its own ruination.
For months, endless evidence has drawn a cloud over deceitful actions by ICE agents as they have fumbled through the Trump administration’s ill-conceived and too often illegal cavalcade of chaos in arresting, abusing and even murdering citizens, non-citizens, legal residents, non-legal residents and others.
During mass deportation sweeps like Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, witnesses revealed a plethora of instances of ICE and Border Control agents using abusive and aggressive tactics. During one botched operation, agents detained a 5-year-old child that had been used to track down a parent. Agents have repeatedly used dubious and sometimes provably false sworn affidavits to make arrests, imploding endless cases in the courts.
The deaths of U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year, amid the Minnesota mayhem caused by fumbled immigration raids, marked a turning point in the Trump administration’s incompetence, callousness and disregard for the Constitution and adherence to the rule of law.
The ghastly deaths were flashbacks to the dark and deadly Kent State debacle in 1970. The Trump fatal malfeasance, however, is far worse because similar crimes committed by the agents carrying out the administration’s orders have been spread across the nation.
The so-called “Metro Surge” included the arrests of protected crime victims and suspects and sometimes provably false-sworn statements and affidavits used by agents and Trump government officials.
Rather than back down from using clearly unconstitutional, illegal schemes in the immigration round-ups, and enlisting and employing unqualified, untrained and incompetent agents, the Trump administration has accelerated the scope and breadth of its chaos.
The July shooting of a 25-year-old motorist in Maine by an ICE officer with a history of violent behavior was preceded just days earlier by another ICE officer who shot and killed a Houston homebuilder driving to work.
Neither shooting was recorded with body cameras.
It’s welcome news this week that the Trump administration announced that all ICE and immigration police agents will wear body cameras on duty, reportedly by the end of the month.
But as so often the case with the Trump administration, the news was tempered by what appear to be misstatements or grim caveats to the long-overdue change.
Earlier in the week, the Associated Press reported that Trump Homeland Security officials said it would only release body cam video that it deemed “in the best interest of the agency.”
Acting ICE Director David J. Venturella walked back the statement, saying that the agencies using the cameras would wield video with “restrictions” intended to protect investigations and privacy.
He said ICE has been “committed to transparency and accountability” and will continue to be.
Without question, no one in the Trump administration, and especially those linked to ICE and border control, have demonstrated even trifling amounts of transparency, honesty or integrity in how it has carried out its chaotic policy of mass deportation.
Aurora residents can attest through experience how dangerous and ineffective it is for police to handle investigations into its own force and be trusted to dispense an accurate and impartial account of officer-involved death and injury incidents.
Congress needs to act here, and now, making clear that withholding immigration-officer body-cam video is illegal and antithetical to open and transparent government. The law must make clear that in the rare case portions of video released to the public could jeopardize fair trial rights, that determination must be made by a reputable court, and a delay could last only until the trial is resolved.
Venturella, and the rest of the Trump administration, must realize that, ultimately, it is in their own “best interest” to comply with U.S. law, the Constitution and measures that ensure government transparency and accountability.
There is no doubt it’s in the best law of U.S. citizens and residents, and Congress must do what it takes to ensure it happens.
