“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg reminded fellow panelist Sunny Hostin on Tuesday as she claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have no right to detain or stop a protester from filming.
Hostin referred to the killing of Renee Good, who was shot by an ICE agent on Wednesday when she accelerated her vehicle near where the officer stood, and suggested that Good simply exercised her First Amendment rights. While citing the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) guidelines, Goldberg informed Hostin of the scenarios where ICE agents are legally permitted to arrest U.S. citizens.
READ: Former MSNBC Host Joy Reid Admits Woman Fatally Shot In Minneapolis Was ‘ICE Interrupter’
“At a protest they can approach you. Yeah, if you’re obstructing space, they can ask you to move. They can ask you to get back if there is a crime scene. They can ask you to move back They cannot ask you to stop filming. They cannot touch you. They cannot push you and they cannot detain you for simply exercising your First Amendment rights,” Hostin said.
“Yes, they can,” Goldberg replied. “So the rights of ICE agents, according to the Constitutional Law Department of Homeland Security … agents can stop, detain and arrest people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally … This is what I’m told. Well, we know anybody, if you walk up on somebody, and they’re arresting your boyfriend. You cannot get in the middle of it, but you’re not talking about protesters. I’m talking about people agents can stop, detain, and arrest people, they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally.”
ICE agents have a right to detain protesters, including U.S. citizens, who physically obstruct or interfere with an immigration enforcement operation, such as blocking the path of an officer’s vehicle, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. Agents are permitted to detain citizens if they interfere with an arrest, assault an officer or if ICE agents suspect the person of being in the U.S. illegally.
While legal precedent has allowed people to film ICE operations, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in September that videotaping agents is “doxxing” and that Americans can face prosecution.
Footage showed Good’s Honda SUV blocking a lane when ICE agents appeared. When one of the officers exited his vehicle to film her license plate, Good’s wife, Rebecca, filmed him with his phone and confronted him. When more agents appeared and ordered her to get out of the car, Good accelerated her vehicle, leading the officer to shoot.
In a video from the officer’s perspective, Rebecca appeared to shout, “drive baby, drive,” when the agents approached Good, according to the officer’s footage first released by Alpha News.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley noted on Thursday that the shooting would likely be seen as justified if the vehicle is deemed a weapon.
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