Isaac Chotiner w/Ryan Goodman: Is ICE Leading Us Into a Constitutional Crisis?

[Nevilledog]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-ice-leading-us-into-a-constitutional-crisis

No paywall link
https://archive.li/stKDa

Last week, the top federal judge in Minnesota accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ice) of violating nearly a hundred court orders in the month of January. In a ruling that was part of a contempt case involving Todd Lyons, the acting director of ice, the judge, Patrick J. Schiltz, wrote, “ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.” ice, Schiltz added, “is not a law unto itself.” The ruling marks perhaps the most serious turn in an ongoing battle between federal courts and the White House, with the Trump Administration often appearing to blatantly ignore court orders, or to comply with them only after being repeatedly warned to do so.

I recently spoke by phone with Ryan Goodman, who is a law professor at N.Y.U., the co-editor-in-chief of the law-and-policy journal Just Security, and a former special counsel at the Department of Defense during the Obama Administration. He and his colleagues at Just Security have been cataloguing examples of the Trump Administration’s defiance of court orders since the start of the President’s second term. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what the Trump Administration is trying to accomplish with its disregard for the judiciary, the emergence of an alternative legal system for ice detainees, and the Supreme Court’s reluctance to rein in Trump.

What stuck out to you most about the Minnesota judge’s ruling?

The part that stuck out the most to me is that Schiltz is a Republican-appointed judge, and he is systematically documenting noncompliance with federal district-court orders—in the immigration context, and especially when it comes to habeas corpus. He’s calling out the gravity of the situation, in which, as he says, there are likely more violations of court orders on ice’s part in one month than in some agencies during their entire lifetime. Stephen Miller suggested, in May, that the Administration was “looking at” suspending habeas corpus. Now, lo and behold, what Judge Schiltz is describing is a form of effectively suspending habeas corpus. And Schlitz is certainly not alone in this judgment.
There are other judges in Minnesota who have called attention to this phenomenon in very similar terms, describing it not just at the individual-case level, but at the system-wide level.

What, specifically, is Judge Schiltz accusing ice of doing? Can you give an example?

What he is calling out, in his particular case, is that the court is ordering someone to be released from ice detention, and the government’s not releasing them. It’s that significant—fundamental liberty is at stake. And then he is referring to seventy-three other cases that all include possible habeas-corpus violations, i.e., very similar patterns of either the court ordering the government to release somebody and them not being released, or the court ordering the government to present the person to the court physically, and them not being allowed to leave detention, or the court ordering someone not to be taken out of its jurisdiction. That’s the very definition of habeas corpus—to bring the body to the court. And they haven’t been doing that. There’s another very pernicious pattern that arises in these cases, which is that the court orders the government not to transfer the individual out of their jurisdiction, and the government goes ahead and transfers them out of their jurisdiction anyway, often to Texas, where there’s a more favorable judicial climate, which can effectively deny the person their real rights before the court in Minnesota.

*snip*

[doc03]

1. We have been in a Constitutional crisis for a year. nt

[ThreeNoSeep]

2. Ya think!

Jesus H, congress critters. You shouldn't be giving them anything. Nothing. The Senate and House Democrats at the very least should go on strike and lead by example!

[tavernier]

3. That's their plan.

They’ve been breaking eggs and making omelettes from the first day he set foot into the White House. How on earth can anybody sound surprised?