Congressman Juan Vargas, for whom I have great respect, spoke out about the excessive use of force in May 30’s Department of Homeland Security raid of the South Park Buona Forchetta restaurant in San Diego. While I share his outrage about how the raid was conducted, he was wrong to criticize the federal magistrate judge who issued the search and arrest warrants.
Congressman Vargas implied, incorrectly, that the warrant authorized arrest of everyone at the restaurant: “How do you sign off on a warrant that says you can arrest everybody that’s there?” That’s not what the warrant said. It identified 19 specific employees who could be searched and seized, based on detailed evidence that they had submitted obviously fraudulent green cards.
Vargas exhorted the court: “Do your job! You’re an independent part of government . . . The courts need to be independent. Here they signed off, it took them one day. She [the magistrate judge] just signed off on it. Just like that, without doing any investigation. It’s an outrage! It’s an outrage! Everyone should be outraged. That should have never happened. . . . The court should not have allowed it . . . This wasn’t following the law . . . .”
Contrary to what Vargas insinuated, the affidavits supporting the warrant applications were highly detailed, with credible evidence that 19 employees had presented obviously fraudulent green cards in the I-9 process. Several had previously submitted false immigration documents or had overstayed visas, and were deported or were allowed to return to Mexico rather than face legal proceedings. That established probable cause.
Mr. Vargas said he was demanding to meet with the Chief Judge of the Southern District of California, which was just an inappropriate bit of “let me speak to the manager” grandstanding. That’s not how legal proceedings work, which the Harvard Law-educated congressman surely knows.
The problem was not with the warrants, much less with the magistrate judge who issued them based on a showing of probable cause. The problem was with the manner in which they were executed. DHS rolled in with camo-clad masked agents with weapons of war, who set off flash grenades in a performative and wholly unnecessary show of military force in a residential neighborhood.
Congress has oversight over DHS, and should exercise it. But attacks on the judiciary are unwarranted and counterproductive. The intimidation and bullying by DHS in executing the lawfully issued search and arrest warrants was outrageous. But Congressman Vargas’s criticisms of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California – and of the Magistrate Judge who approved the warrants in particular – were also outrageous.
Juan Vargas should know better. To a member of Congress with responsibility for overseeing DHS, I direct his comment back at him: Do your job. Misleading attacks on the judiciary aren’t part of it.
Ken Fitzgerald is a trial lawyer, trumpet player and writer living in Coronado.
