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Someone tell Tom Steyer, et al: Dems can’t arrest ICE in California 

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There is a certain kind of politician who has learned that saying something loudly and confidently is a perfectly adequate substitute for saying something true. California’s gubernatorial race has produced a bumper crop of them.

Tom Steyer, the billionaire-liberal-donor-turned candidate, has called for abolishing ICE and jailing its agents, describing the federal law enforcement agency as a “violent extremist group.”

Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa compared ICE officers to the Ku Klux Klan, and state Schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond promised to have ICE agents arrested. Former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra vowed to “police the immigration police.“

These are the leading candidates to become governor of the most populous state in the union.

One might ask: Can they actually do any of this? The answer, rooted not in opinion but in two centuries of constitutional law, is no.

And yet the question almost never gets asked, because the performance is the point.

Under the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the US Constitution, and under longstanding Supreme Court precedent, states may not criminally prosecute federal officers for actions taken in the lawful course of their federal duties, provided the officer reasonably believed those actions were necessary to fulfill that duty.

This is not an obscure technicality. It is the foundational architecture of American federalism, and it has been settled law for longer........

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