Lawmakers are demanding answers about Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities around a U.S. Army base in California.
Democratic Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Jimmy Panetta sent a letter earlier this month to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll seeking information about possible agreement between personnel at Fort Hunter Liggett and federal immigration agents after more than a dozen men were ensnared in an apparently coordinated trap, reported The Guardian.
“Seven fishermen went fishing, and we’re the ones who got hooked,” said Francisco Galicia, who was arrested last month near the army base and deported back to Mexico days later.
All seven men had been driving home from fishing at a popular county lake when they were pulled over by military police on a road that cuts through part of the base and asked to give their Social Security numbers. Immigration agents quickly arrived at the scene to arrest them when they could not provide that information.
"Together, the accounts suggest that the Department of the Army civilian police at Fort Hunter Liggett – whose mission is to maintain law and order on base property – assisted in the federal government’s nationwide drive to arrest undocumented immigrants, a scheme that military law experts and members of Congress say may violate a U.S. law restricting the use of the military on domestic soil," The Guardian reported.
Police don't typically seek Social Security numbers during traffic stops, according to Rachel VanLandingham, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and law professor. She added that the trivial reasons for the stops – a license plate light out, an open gas cap, a trunk door ajar, driving over the line – suggested they were for immigration enforcement purposes.
"[They were] obviously just a pretext for pulling these folks over to check their documentation," VanLandingham said.
Fort Hunter Liggett denied receiving federal directives to work with ICE.
The Army refused to say whether officers violated policy by requesting Social Security numbers during traffic stops unrelated to base access, but experts warned the development is a "creep in the wrong direction toward military participation in law enforcement."
"This week it may be fingering migrants to ICE," said William Banks, a Syracuse University military law expert. "Next week, it could be picking up people with anti-Trump bumper stickers."