State Courthouses: Supreme Court and Police Associations

state courthouses: One of the state's police associations said the ruling applied to all state law-enforcement officials, according to Metro News. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that remaining in the U.S. when subject to deportation is a civil infraction, not a criminal one. The Supreme Judicial Court opinion applied specifically to officers who provide security in state courthouses, but the ruling also suggested that no Massachusetts police officer has the legal standing to comply with such federal requests. In its unanimous decision Monday, the Supreme Judicial Court pointed out there is no state law that provides authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer beyond the time that individual would otherwise be entitled to a release from state custody. The decision is a major setback to the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration enforcement, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said. Conspicuously absent from our common law is any authority in the absence of a statute for police officers to arrest generally for civil matters, let alone authority to arrest specifically for federal civil immigration matters, the court wrote. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.