SCOFFLAWS OUTED AGAIN: FEDERAL COURTS DELIVER “DOUBLE BODY SLAM” TO TRUMP & SESSIONS ON CHILD SEPARATION, DACA!

Judge slams Trump admin for suggesting ACLU, others should find deported parents

By Tal Kopan, CNN

A federal judge called the Trump administration’s slowness to track down migrant parents it had separated from their children and then deported “unacceptable,” saying the responsibility is “100%” on the government.

The stern admonishment from District Judge Dana Sabraw came a day after the administration argued that immigrant advocacy groups — not the government — should be responsible for tracking down the more than 500 parents it had separated from their children at the border and deported without them.

Sabraw said during a Friday phone hearing that if the government doesn’t track down the parents, it will have “permanently orphaned” their children.

“The reality is there are still close to 500 parents that have not been located, many of these parents were removed from the country without their child, all of this is the result of the government’s separation and then inability and failure to track and reunite,” Sabraw said.

“And the reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanent orphaned child, and that is 100% the responsibility of the administration,” he added.

Sabraw instructed the administration to name one or two officials to be a single point of command in the reunification effort, and to submit a detailed plan for how they will reunify children with parents either deported or, in a smaller number of cases, released into the US.

“In reviewing the status report it appears that only 12 or 13 of close to 500 parents have been located, which is just unacceptable at this point,” Sabraw said.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/trump-administration-aclu-deported-parents/index.html

 

Judge again says DACA must be restored

By Tal Kopan and Dan Berman

A federal judge on Friday again said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program should be fully restored.

Judge John Bates said the Trump administration still has failed to justify its proposal to end DACA, the Obama-era program that has protected nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation.

Bates agreed to delay his ruling for 20 days to give the administration time to respond and appeal, if it chooses.

More (being updated):http://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/daca-ruling/index.html

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Basically the Administration is “flicking the middle finger” at Judge Sabraw and his family reunification order. And, they are also doing the same thing to Judge Bates by nonchalantly screwing 800,000 young people, American’s future, without providing any legal rationale.

As a former judge, I actually understand why these judges are letting this “roll off their backs” and focusing on making the Administration solve the problems they created. Judges have to be the “adults in the room” even in an Administration of infantile minds.

But, at some point, a lawyer like Sessions who thumbs his nose at judicial orders and fails to provide any legal support for a litigating position that affects 800,000 American residents should face disciplinary proceedings. Not only has the Administration’s response been unacceptable, but so has the professional and ethical performance of Sessions and his DOJ lawyers. What about “Bivens liability” for Sessions and other Administration officials who knowingly and intentionally violated Constitutional rights in the child separation program, had their attorneys lie to the court about the very existence of the policy,  and refused to take responsibility for fixing it.

Perhaps when this is over. But, then again, maybe not.

PWS

08-03-18

 

DACA: SCOFFLAWS TRUMP & SESSIONS OUTED AGAIN — USD Judge John Bates (DC) Finds Administration’s Rationale For Terminating DACA Was Bogus – But, Gives Trumpsters 90 Days To Explain Before Restarting Program! – NAACP v. Trump!

NAACP v. Trump, U.S.D.C., D.D.C., 04-24-18 (Judge John D. Bates)

Read Judge Bates’s 60 page decision invalidating the Trump Administration’s decision to “rescind” DACA and ordering the restart of the program, but delaying the order for 90 days to give the Administration a chance to come up with a legal rationale for recision:

JugeBatesDACA

Key Quote From Judge Bates:

Executive Branch officials possess relatively unconstrained authority to enforce the law against certain violators but not others. Ordinarily, the exercise of that authority is subject to review not in a court of law, but rather in the court of public opinion: members of the public know how their elected officials have used their enforcement powers, and they can hold those officials accountable by speaking out, by petitioning their representatives, or ultimately at the ballot box. When an official claims that the law requires her to exercise her enforcement authority in a certain way, however, she excuses herself from this accountability. Moreover, if her view of the law is incorrect, she may needlessly forego the opportunity to implement appropriate enforcement priorities and also to demonstrate those priorities to the public.

Fortunately, neither Supreme Court nor D.C. Circuit precedent compels such a result. Rather, the cases are clear that courts have the authority to review an agency’s interpretation of the law if it is relied on to justify an enforcement policy, even when that interpretation concerns the lawful scope of the agency’s enforcement discretion. See Chaney, 470 U.S. at 832–33; OSG, 132 F.3d at 812; Crowley, 37 F.3d at 676–77. Under this rule, an official cannot claim that the law ties her hands while at the same time denying the courts’ power to unbind her. She may escape political accountability or judicial review, but not both.

Here, the Department’s decision to rescind DACA was predicated primarily on its legal judgment that the program was unlawful. That legal judgment was virtually unexplained, however, and so it cannot support the agency’s decision. And although the government suggests that DACA’s rescission was also predicated on the Department’s assessment of litigation risk, this consideration is insufficiently distinct from the agency’s legal judgment to alter the reviewability analysis. It was also arbitrary and capricious in its own right, and thus likewise cannot support the agency’s action. For these reasons, DACA’s rescission was unlawful and must be set aside.

For the reasons given above, then, the Court will vacate the Department’s September 5, 2017 decision to rescind the DACA program. The Court will stay its order of vacatur for 90 days, however, to afford DHS an opportunity to better explain its view that DACA is unlawful. The Court will also deny the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, its motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ APA claims on reviewability grounds, and its motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ substantive APA claim; grant the government’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ procedural APA claim, the NAACP plaintiffs’ RFA claim, and plaintiffs’ information-sharing claim; and defer ruling on the government’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ remaining constitutional claims.

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So, who “won” under Judge Bate’s order? The plaintiffs won a smashing victory on all the significant legal issues. And, Judge Bates appears prepared to not only halt the termination of DACA for those already approved under the program, as other courts have done, but also to order the DHS to resume accepting new applications for those who meet the DACA criteria.

On the flip side, nothing happens for the next 90 days while the DHS searches for a rationale for terminating DACA. I think that’s going to be hard to develop. But, you never know.

This case follows a disturbingly familiar pattern. Trump, Sessions, & Co. institute actions against immigrants based on bias, racism, xenophobia, and campaign promises. They are promptly rejected by the courts as illegal.

Then, the Administration goes “to the drawing board” (they never seriously considered the law in the first place)  in an attempt to come up with a legal rationale (usually a fairly obvious pretext) for their original actions.

That’s why it’s so infuriating to hear an intellectually dishonest scofflaw like Jeff Sessions constantly pontificating about a “rule of law” that actually represents only his own distorted and biased view of the law — likely drawn up for him by one of the restrictionist or White Nationalist groups he likes to hang around with.

Of course, even if Judge Bates eventually rules against the Administration, there no doubt will be an appeal to the DC Circuit. But, without a further stay pending appeal (which seems unlikely given the Supreme Court’s declination to give one in other DACA litigation) DACA would be restarted while the case is working its way through the lower courts, perhaps to the Supremes.

The Administration could easily have avoided this mess by agreeing to a “clean” DACA bill. They likely could even have gotten some “Wall” funding and other enforcement enhancements (short of more unneeded agents or more inhumane and unnecessary detention) thrown in with the deal. But, Trump blew the chance.

So now the fate of DACA is likely to be tied up in the Federal Courts for the indefinite future.

PWS

04-24-18