Some elected Democrats, consumed as they are with anti-Trump hatred, have lost touch with reality when it comes to their fierce opposition against President Donald Trump's use of federal agents to crack down on street crime and to fully enforce the nation's immigration laws.

One recent example involves former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who astonishingly asserted that local authorities in California can and should arrest and prosecute federal agents for alleged violations of local or state laws, according to Breitbart.

Yet, while the local arrest and prosecution of federal agents may technically be possible, there are certain constitutional and doctrinal protections for the feds that would render such an outcome as highly unlikely to occur.

Pelosi wants arrests of federal agents

In response to recent rumors that President Trump was planning to inundate the San Francisco area with a surge of federal law enforcement agents, if not also National Guard troops, ex-Speaker Pelosi and fellow Bay Area Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-CA) issued a joint statement of opposition to the potential development.

"It is important to note that California law protects communities and prevents federal agents from taking certain actions here that we have witnessed in other states," the two Democratic lawmakers said without detailing what actions, specifically, they were referencing in the unnamed "other states."

"While the President may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not," they added. "Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law -- and if they are convicted, the President cannot pardon them."

San Francisco DA enters fray

According to the New York Times, the idea of Reps. Pelosi and Mullin to arrest and prosecute federal agents engaged in President Trump's crime and immigration crackdowns appears to have originated with Democrat San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who is on the lookout for examples of federal agents employing "clear, excessive use of force" against citizens and migrants.

She claimed that she'd discussed the idea with the leadership of the San Francisco Police Department, and that they were on board with it.

Jenkins doesn't foresee local cops interrupting ongoing federal operations to slap cuffs on allegedly misbehaving agents, however, and instead suggested that video of alleged unlawful incidents would be reviewed later, and, if the supposed offending agent could be identified, the evidence and information would be presented to a local judge with a request for an arrest warrant.

Multiple hurdles emerge

Even the Times acknowledged that the plan expressed by Pelosi, Mullin, and Jenkins seemed far-fetched and unlikely to transpire, which is the view shared by the dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky, who pointed to the lack of precedent for such local arrests of federal officials, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

"As long as the ICE agents are acting legally, the state can’t prosecute them and hold them liable, even if it dislikes what they’re doing," Chemerinsky told the outlet.

That said, if there is sufficient and unmistakeable evidence of wrongdoing, "I think the ICE agents can be sued, for battery, for excessive force, in state court, and I think they can be similarly prosecuted," he noted, and added, "If ICE agents act beyond their legal authority, and violate state law in doing so, they can be prosecuted."

Likely also standing in the way of vengeful Democrats looking to lock up federal agents for doing their jobs is the so-called Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2, which lays out how federal law reigns supreme over state and local laws whenever there is any sort of conflict between them.

Another problem for the Democrats is that the federal agents have what is known as "qualified immunity," a judicial doctrine that generally protects government officials and law enforcement officers from facing arrest and prosecution for actions taken that are necessary functions of their job -- which sometimes includes using force against recalcitrant individuals, be they criminal citizens or fugitive illegal aliens.