Fourthly, by this writ not only deputies, etc., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us: to be the servants of servants, the most despicable of God's creation?

—James Otis, On the Writs of Assistance, Superior Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1761

There is a fully deputized, well-armed national police force operating in this country like we’ve never seen operate before. It cannot truly be called lawless because it is operating under the laws as executed by the national Executive, consented to by the national Legislature, and approved of, tacitly, by the people who elected the members of the former two branches. In another sense, however, in its contempt for the rights of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution, it is acting not against the law, but in a dark space beyond it, where the law is as weak and irrelevant as gravity is in outer space. From Syracuse.com:

John Collins was standing outside the milk house at his dairy farm this morning when he heard yelling coming from inside. He ran in, he says, and saw his worker, Marcial de Leon Aguilar, pinned up against the window by armed men. The men did not identify themselves and were screaming at Aguilar, Collins said. "I run and say, 'What the hell is going on in here?'" Collins said.

There is no question more vital to the survival of democracy than, “Hey, what the hell is going on here?”

Then the men told Collins they were officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He asked them for a warrant or some paperwork to explain what they were doing. They had none, he said, so he ordered them to get off his property and leave Aguilar alone. As this happened, Collins said, Aguilar's children watched. They were waiting nearby for the school bus to come. Collins said the officers put Aguilar in handcuffs and took him across the rural road to their vehicles. At least seven officers had come onto the small farm, Collins said.

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Seven fully armed cops storm a farm to bust one guy? Was he an undocumented immigrant from fcking Krypton?

Collins said he followed the officers cross the street and asked them why they were taking Aguilar, but he didn't get a straight answer. He also continued to ask for paperwork, but was not offered any by the ICE officers. Aguilar and his wife, Virginia, are Guatemalan. Aguilar has worked for Collins for about nine months, Collins said. Aguilar, his wife, and his children live in a home on Collins' property. Collins said Aguilar had proper documentation to work for him. And he's been paying taxes since working for Collins. Aguilar's wife, Virginia, and the couple's four children were not in the U.S. until recently. She was caught crossing the border, illegally, with the children. Collins said she has been meeting with ICE officers since she arrived, and is seeking asylum for herself and the children because of the violence in Guatemala. Collins said Virginia met with ICE officers as recently as last week, and has another meeting scheduled for this Friday. At times, Aguilar has accompanied his wife, who is pregnant, to some of the meetings, Collins said.

Sounds like both the Aguilars and the Collinses have been playing it pretty straight.

"ICE needs a warrant. If they go on someone's property without one, they are violating the law," said immigration law expert and Cornell law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr. Collins said the officers gave him nothing when he continued to ask. Collins followed the ICE officers across as they took Aguilar, in handcuffs, to their three waiting vehicles."I told them you can't come in here without a warrant," Collins said. "They can't take someone and throw them up against the wall because of the color of their skin."

News travels slowly upstate. Mr. Collins may have missed what happened to the country on November 9, 2016.

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It’s long past time for ICE to get a cavity search by the institutions of democracy. This, of course, will not happen under the current president* nor under the current Congress. Rein these cowboys in before a whole lot of somebodies get badly dead.

Collins attempted to take photos and video with his phone. When he did that, he said, one of the ICE officers grabbed his phone and threw it into the road. Then they handcuffed him and threatened to arrest him for hindering a federal investigation, he said. But then the officers uncuffed him and left with Aguilar in the backseat of a dark Dodge Caravan. "This was something you see on TV," Collins said. "You don't expect it to be here."

But see, that’s the thing. Eventually, it always happens here. Wherever you are. That’s what James Otis meant. This entire country started as a revolution against arbitrary and unwarranted searches and seizures. That’s what originally lit the fire in Boston that spread to the other colonies. Looked at in the long view of history, this country’s origin story is a Fourth Amendment story.

If it can happen to people in the Arizona desert, or in the barrios of Los Angeles, or in the meat-packing plants in Iowa or Kansas, it can happen on a dairy farm in rural New York. If it can happen to families in El Paso, it can happen to the Collinses in Rome, New York. And if it can happen to the Collinses, it can happen to us all. That’s the fundamental truth of the American experiment.

What a scene does this open! Every man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a Writ of Assistance. Others will ask it from self-defence; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in tumult and in blood.

—James Otis, on the Writs of Assistance, Superior Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1761.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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