Chief Justice John Roberts, who has enabled Donald Trump’s quest for authoritarian power through his outrageous immunity opinion and ongoing abuse of the emergency docket, is very disturbed about attacks on lower court judges (“it’s got to stop”). It would certainly be helpful if he identified Trump as the chief instigator of attacks on these federal judges and, further, if he stopped summarily reversing — without explanation — the diligent work of lower court judges.
Meanwhile, courageous lower federal judges every day tenaciously enforce the rule of law against Trump’s jaw-dropping cruelty, lawlessness, and arbitrariness that victimize the most vulnerable people, especially immigrants. (Meanwhile, judges fearlessly call out government lawyers for presenting misleading information and evading court orders, and blast the regime for capricious decisions.)
This week, for example, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns for the District of Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order barring implementation of the regime’s new Detention Refugee Policy, which mandated the arrest and detention of refugees who had not applied for permanent residency within one year. These people had been vetted and were legally permitted to enter the country. The policy would have impacted those needing time to complete their applications and medical exams, as well as about 100,000 refugees with pending applications. In other words, by dragging their feet in processing applications, Trump’s minions could convert lawfully present refugees into undocumented immigrants subject to deportation. The court nixed this Kafkaesque gambit.
“Before this year, refugees were expected to apply for their green card starting at the one-year mark, and used to get their applications denied if they submitted them too early,” Axios reported. The new policy declared that they had to be “returned” to DHS custody. However, these refugees had never been in custody, so the policy made no sense and lacked statutory authority.
“The challenged policy was set to disrupt longstanding federal guidance, including a 2010 Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy confirming that a refugee’s failure to apply for adjustment of status is not a lawful basis for detention,” explained Democracy Forward, which, along with the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), represented six refugees, the Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, and the International Institute of New England. “The court found that the plaintiffs face clear harm, noting that the threat of unlawful detention is quintessential, irreparable harm. The court further recognized that the policy would disrupt the core missions of the organizational plaintiffs.”
In another case, U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins for the District of Columbia “ordered the Trump administration to bring back a woman abruptly deported to Mexico last month despite her active protections under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program,” Politico reported. “Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez arrived in the United States in 1998 as an undocumented 15-year-old. She was granted DACA protection in 2013 and lives in Sacramento with a 22-year-old U.S. citizen daughter.”
The facts are outrageous, but all too common under the Trump regime: Estrada Juarez and her daughter appeared at a hearing to obtain lawful permanent residency, whereupon “federal immigration officers denied her application, informed her that she was the subject of a decades-old removal order, and detained her.” She was deported the next morning. The outlandish facts drew widespread outrage from, among others, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA).
Petitioner was removed in flagrant violation of the regulatory protections afforded to her under DACA, and in violation of the Constitutional protections afforded to her under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
She granted her demand for a temporary restraining order and ordered the Trump regime to “facilitate her immediate return to the United States.”
Coggins excoriated the government’s cockeyed argument for denying a habeas petition, namely that the deported DACA recipient did not face an “extreme circumstance,” because within the roughly 20 hours between detention and removal, she “did not succeed in contacting and retaining counsel who could then prepare and file an emergency request for stay of her removal, and an immigration judge did not grant such an emergency stay request.”
Coggins had no patience for this nonsense: “Essentially, Respondents argue that the government is immune from liability from any claim for violation of a noncitizen’s right to due process in removal proceedings so long as that right is violated quickly. Respondents, unsurprisingly, do not cite any authority supporting this proposition.” Coggins therefore held that the petitioner had “demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of her claim that her removal presents an extreme circumstance warranting continued habeas jurisdiction despite her removal to Mexico.”
Coggins went on to find that Estrada Juarez had a due process interest in protecting her DACA status (which the Supreme Court has recognized is not just “a passive non-enforcement policy… [but] a program for conferring affirmative relief”). Coggins also rejected the Trump regime’s specious claim that Estrada Juarez had not suffered irreparable harm because — get this — she had already been deported and was out of custody; therefore, the government insisted, “there is no irreparable harm that will occur in the absence of a restraining order.”
Rejecting this circular reasoning, Coggins recited the litany of harms Estrada Juarez and her daughter suffered. She then held:
“The court finds, clearly and unequivocally, that each day Petitioner remains unlawfully separated from her daughter, they both suffer unimaginable irreparable harm.”
True to form (and without regard for Roberts’ call to stop vilifying judges), a DHS spokesperson denounced “yet another ruling from a Biden-appointed activist judge,” and falsely stated that DACA residents do not have “any form of legal status in this country.”
The Trump regime in these two cases (and hundreds more) has demonstrated its determination to concoct circumstances to entrap otherwise law-abiding, productive residents. The regime’s heartless determination to expel as many non-whites as possible, and the Justice Department lawyers’ willingness to defend these monstrous actions, should enrage and embarrass decent Americans.
These cases highlight the indispensable role of independent, nonpartisan federal judges whose obligation is to the Constitution. They consistently have refused to tolerate the mental gymnastics Trump’s legal goons deploy against the most vulnerable people. (One can only marvel at the judges’ ability to maintain their composure and contain their contempt for the government lawyers’ drivel.) Lower federal court judges’ undaunted and uncompromising defense of the rule of law and of simple human decency deserves our praise and our gratitude. For many Americans, these judges are the final line of defense against authoritarian abuse. No wonder Trump loathes them.
Thank goodness for these lower court judges! May they continue to be shining lights in all this darkness!!
We cannot survive with only lower court justices on board. I would feel more confident if they started holding the Felon's minions in contempt and arrest their arses.