Moody's Secret Police Protection Bill Flops Hard in Senate
Freshman Sen. Ashley Moody’s proposal to criminalize existing near immigration agents has zero co-sponsors; Karoline Leavitt's kin abducted by ICE; and more.
WASHINGTON — There is much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Eve, but high on the list for civil libertarians is a resounding silence in the Senate. Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) introduced the “Halo Act” (S. 3179) last week, a bill designed to turn federal immigration agents into a protected class immune from public scrutiny.
So be thankful that as I type, the bill has exactly zero co-sponsors.
The Florida Republican’s legislation is a masterclass in constitutional illiteracy. The “Halo Act” would make it a federal crime to knowingly approach or remain within 25 feet of a federal immigration enforcement officer after receiving a warning. The penalty for violating this “safe space”? Up to five years in federal prison.
But the devil is in the definitions. The bill criminalizes “harassment,” which Moody defines as conduct that “causes substantial emotional distress” to an officer and “serves no legitimate purpose”.
Let’s be clear about what this means: If a journalist, a legal observer, or a grieving mother asks an ICE agent a question that makes them feel “substantial emotional distress”—a bar lower than a snake’s belly—they could face a felony charge. It effectively grants federal agents the power to arrest anyone recording their actions, provided they shout “back up” first.
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A History of “Lame-Brained” Legality
For a former prosecutor and Florida Attorney General, Moody’s grasp of constitutional law appears embarrassingly tenuous. This bill isn’t just bad policy; it is a cut-and-paste job of failed state laws that courts have already eviscerated. The legislation ignores precedents set by federal courts that have consistently struck down similar “buffer zones” around law enforcement as violating the First Amendment.
Moody knows this. Her tenure as Florida Attorney General was defined by performative cruelty and doomed litigation. She spent years suing the Biden administration to usurp federal immigration authority, famously claiming the state was facing an “invasion” to justify hardline tactics. Now, as a freshman Senator, she is attempting to codify that same fragility, trying to shield agents from the very public they serve.
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Historical Context: The Secret Police Wishlist
The “Halo Act” belongs to a dark lineage of American legislation. It echoes the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which sought to criminalize criticism of the government under the guise of national security.
More recently, it mirrors the proliferation of “ag-gag” laws designed to hide factory farm abuses, and the post-2020 wave of “police buffer” laws. These efforts share a single, tyrannical goal: to remove state violence from the public record. By making the observation of enforcement illegal, Moody is effectively asking for a secret police force, unaccountable to anyone but their own “emotional distress.”
BIG CHART ENERGY
Cato Institute’s Davie Bier posted new data this week revealing that just five percent of people detained by ICE in October have had violent criminal convictions. Three-fourths had no criminal convictions, at all. DHS will claim this is a lie, of course, despite that it’s their own data snitching on their piss poor job performance as an agency under embattled Secretary Kristi Noem.
OTHER REPORTING
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez reported that Bruna Caroline Ferreira, a Brazilian mother who is related by marriage to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, was arrested by ICE near Boston earlier this month. Ferreira’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, disputes DHS claims that she is a “criminal illegal alien,” stating she is a former Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient who is currently in a “lawful immigration process” for U.S. citizenship. Ferreira is being held at a detention center in Louisiana, over 1,500 miles from her 11-year-old son in New Hampshire, underscoring the arbitrary cruelty of internal enforcement.
The 19th’s Leslie Rangel reported that the 15-year-old son of Maria Garcia, who has an intellectual disability, was held in federal custody for 48 days after his mother reported him missing in Houston. Instead of reuniting Emmanuel Alexander Gonzalez Garcia with his mother, Houston Police transferred him to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Community members, including mothers of children with neurological disabilities, held nightly meals outside the facility to show support for the detained child who was repeatedly separated from his mother.
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