NBC police procedural “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” joined Democrats in continuing to paint Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as villains who have nothing better to do than to pluck innocent immigrants off the streets for their own nefarious purposes.
In an episode that ran Thursday — just hours after a shooter targeted and opened fire upon an ICE facility in Texas — NYPD detectives squared off against ICE agents in an effort to keep them from deporting an illegal immigrant who was a key witness in a rape case.
Newsbusters detailed the episode in question, titled “In the Wind.” It features an illegal immigrant named Jorge Ruiz, who is working as a building superintendent — and who has identified the suspect in a rape case. When detectives arrive to question him about the suspect, an ICE raid is already in progress. For the rest of the episode — which frames ICE as the bad guys preventing police officers from effectively investigating the rape case and then further complicating the prosecution against the alleged rapist — the NYPD and ICE agents are at odds.
The episode comes to a head when Captain Olivia Benson (played by Mariska Hargitay) is arrested when she orders her detectives to arrest Ruiz in an effort to hold him as a material witness and prevent ICE from taking him into custody.
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“Captain, ICE is on the way up,” one detective tells Benson.
“What?” she asks.
“How do they know?” Ruiz asks.
“Come. There’s a back stairway,” Benson tries to help Ruiz avoid the federal agents.
“No, wait. Don’t try that,” Assistant District Attorney Sonny Carisi warns her.
“Can they do this?” one detective asks.
“They don’t have a warrant,” another protests.
“Doesn’t matter. They’re Feds,” Carisi explains.
“So they take our witness, and we can’t do anything about it?” one asks.
“Hold on a second. I need you to trust me. Can you do that? Velasco, arrest him,” Benson says, indicating Ruiz.
She then tells the ICE agents that Ruiz is in the custody of the NYPD and cannot be removed until he testifies — at which point the agents arrest her for interfering in federal immigration matters. She is eventually released, however, and Ruiz is allowed to testify.
The writers could not resist taking just one more jab at federal immigration officials when the illegal immigrant is finally brought into the courtroom. ICE agents interrupt the proceedings, only to be reprimanded by the judge hearing the case.
“No, not in my courtroom. Jimmy, tell them they can wait outside, but they are not welcome here,” the judge declares.
ICE agents, in just the last eight months, have faced a nearly 1000% increase in attacks on themselves and their families. A number have blamed the media and Democrats for continuously pointing to ICE agents as villains, thugs, and worse.
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