It turns out that, once again, an illegal immigrant who was supposed to be deported—ten years ago—decided to not leave. And now he’s killed three people. If the feds had done their job and removed this person from our presence, three people would still be alive today. The same thing happened with one of the Beltway Snipers. It seems right and just to me that the government should be held accountable. Having 1) identified a person who did not belong here and 2) determined that he had to leave, it is incumbent upon them to do their job and make sure the person is removed.
Is this going to be another one of those threads where I spend six pages pointing out that there’s no real cause of action against the government in cases like this, only to have you announce that you were “really” talking about “justice?”
So let me say: perhaps there is some amorphous “justice” in the idea of suing the government.
But there is no actual legal path to do so under these facts.
Perhaps there is in some cases, but in the circumstances given in the OP, I don’t see how the federal government ought to be liable. The article dos not say why Mr Alfaro (the alleged murderer) was subject to deportation. but presumably it was not for committing crimes of violence, since he’d have been subject to imprisonment for those crimes then deportation. Is everyone caught as an illegal immigrant likely to commit murder? That’s what those suggesting liability on the part of the government are suggesting.
It seems to me that Magellan is arguing that any crime committed by an person who has a deportation order against them, is the personal responsibility of the Federal Government.
Of course, this is ridiculous. It’s like saying that the cops are responsible when some guy with an arrest warrant against him commits another crime.
No, the guy who commits the crime is responsible, not the cops who failed to prevent him from committing a crime. It is a long standing principle that the justice system is not tasked with preventing particular crimes. A police officer is not responsible for stopping every crime, even if they witness the crime occurring right in front of them. If a cop sees a guy selling crack on the streetcorner, he can just roll on past and is not required to arrest the crack dealer. So learning that a cop could have arrested the crack dealer doesn’t make the cop responsible when the crack dealer robs a liquor store the next day.
Sovereign immunity. Basically, the government is sovereign and can’t be sued, unless it consents to be sued. By law, Congress has provided a number of causes of action under which people may sue the federal government. But because there is no general duty to capture criminals before they can do harm, and the government has the power to enforce its own rules with discretion, this particular incident doesn’t fit into any of those exceptions.
Generally, I don’t care much for sovereign immunity, but I don’t see why anyone should have liability for illegal immigrants committing crimes. Suppose Ángela employs Bianca, knowing that Bianca is a Mexican citizen who does not have the right to work in the US. Should Ángela be liable for the criminal acts of Bianca commited many years later, with no connection to the employment?
Thankfully, gun manufacturers or dealers do not have sovereign immunity. I await the OP’s full support for lawsuits against those who allowed the assailant to get his hands on the murder weapon to fall into this illegal immigrant’s hands.
Had the traitor, James II, not allied himself with Rome, contrary to the interests of the British people, then there would have been no House of Hanover on the British throne. A stronger monarch would have prevented the uprising in the colonies. The path is clear - we need to sue the Vatican.
The personal responsibility of not deporting them is who exactly? I think this follows that the government is the one shirking the personal responsibility here.
To issue the deportation order, don’t they necessarily have to have the perp detained? It doesn’t follow that an arrest warrant being placed for someone is in custody.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you?
So, do you want the government to be liable for every instance that someone evades punishment for breaking the law, or just the ones that involve immigration law? I mean, you could just as easily argue that if a guy who gets picked up for check fraud is released on bail until his trial goes and stabs an old lady in the neck with a coat hanger, that it wouldn’t have happened if the government had done its job and locked him up for check fraud. Of course, what if you hold him and he stabs another prisoner or a guard? Then the government is liable for not letting him out on bail.
Maybe just to be safe, we should go ahead and hold the government liable for any and every action that they could have taken (or not taken) to cause or prevent something bad from happening. For example, if I didn’t have to stop by H&R Block on the way home to file my taxes, I wouldn’t have been on the road where another car ran into me. If they had required me to come in for regular screenings for illegal drugs, they would have noticed my kidney infection before it got serious. If they had repaired the pothole near my house faster, my tires might have lasted a bit longer and not gotten a flat until I was right next to the tire center.