The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas is warning that threatening or interfering with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can be a felony.
In a statement released Friday, U.S. Attorney Ryan A. Kriegshauser said he is concerned about what he described as recent incidents of people “using their vehicles to aggressively chase or interfere with federal agents engaged in their official duties.”
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office – District of Kansas strongly supports and seeks to protect freedom of speech and the right to peacefully protest,” Kriegshauser is quoted in the statement. “However, we will not allow illegal conduct that endangers the safety of law enforcement and other members of the public.”
According to Reuters, there has been an increase in arrests of activists following ICE agents nationwide, citing a U.S. code that criminalizes anyone who “forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes” with a federal officer.
Feb. 14 incident recounted
In his statement, Kriegshauser specifically referenced a Feb. 14 incident in Olathe involving a 19-year-old.
ICE agents were conducting a “targeted search for an identified individual,” Kriegshauser said, when two local residents began following agents in their car “in an exceedingly aggressive manner.”
The car’s license plate was connected to someone with an outstanding warrant who had been deported, the statement said, which led to ICE agents stopping the driver, who they later determined was an American citizen.
While the statement does not name any specific person, the details match the detention of Brian Nataren, 19, in the parking lot of an Olathe Walmart on Saturday, Feb. 14.
Nataren and his brother told KMBC they were driving to Walmart around 9 a.m. that day when they learned ICE agents were nearby. Nataren said an ICE vehicle almost hit them before following them into the Walmart parking lot.
Video that circulated widely on social media shows agents removing Nataren from his car, putting him on the ground and handcuffing him. Nataren told KMBC that an agent grabbed him by the neck while pulling him from his car and put his knees on his back.
In the video, an agent can be heard saying, “Put him in the car and let’s go.”
He was taken to municipal court, questioned and released later that day, Kriegshauser said.
“After reviewing the arrest for interference, we determined that the individual involved admitted to following federal agents in his vehicle while screaming at them, and he admitted to driving recklessly to where he almost struck the agent with his vehicle,” the U.S. attorney’s statement says.
Kriegshauser said his office will not be pressing charges against the 19-year-old, but that may change if they receive additional information.
Nataren told KMBC that ICE agents were the ones driving recklessly and said he and his brother were trying to avoid them.
Another ICE encounter that same day
In a separate incident that same Saturday morning, Feb. 14, Taryn Heath said she also encountered ICE agents in Olathe.
Heath is part of a network of “rapid responders” who are trained to observe and document ICE activity. She said she was patrolling a neighborhood where ICE had been seen the day before when she heard from another volunteer that agents were staging at a Hardee’s parking lot nearby.
“So I went down to that parking lot and pulled up next to our responder to check, ‘Are you OK?’” she said. Heath said an ICE agent approached her car and warned her to stop following them.
Heath recorded part of the interaction and shared the video, which does not include audio, with the Post. The footage shows a man wearing a tactical vest reading “ICE,” standing at her car window and shaking his finger at her.
“He started yelling at me that I needed to stop following them and that this was my one warning, and if I followed him again, he was yanking me out of my car,” she said.
Heath said she replied with what she had been taught in her training.
“I had responded with something along the lines of, ‘I will be in the area. I will be exercising my constitutional rights, but I will not interfere,’” she said.
Heath continued to patrol the neighborhood but was not following the agents, she said. Like Nataren, she said it was the agents who were driving recklessly.
“Every time he drove up and down the street … he’d zoom down the street as fast as he could,” she said. “And sometimes he’d do that, and he’d zoom right up next to me and get in my window and say, ‘How you doing now? What are you up to? Still here?’”
Heath said shortly after, she heard reports that a young man had been detained in a Walmart parking lot nearby.
What are observers’ rights?
As an observer, ACLU attorney Scarlet Kim told NPR that it is legal to follow ICE agents in a car from a safe distance. She said it’s also legal to record, whistle and honk at them.
Impeding or interfering with law enforcement is illegal. That could look like stepping into an agent’s way or touching them.
Under the First Amendment, observers have the right to record interactions with ICE agents, but local nonprofit Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation says to back off, if asked.
Under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, one has the right to refuse a search without a warrant.
The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment gives the right to remain silent, to legal representation and to due process of law.
