Pretty outrageous
Good. The LA Times:
A federal judge in Washington halted an apparent deportation-in-progress Thursday and threatened to hold Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions in contempt after learning that the Trump administration tried to remove a woman and her daughter while a court hearing appealing their deportations was underway.
“This is pretty outrageous,” said U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan after being told about the removal. “That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?”
“I’m not happy about this at all,” the judge continued. “This is not acceptable.”
The woman, known in court papers as Carmen, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenges a recent decision by Sessions to exclude domestic and gang violence as reasons that people can qualify for asylum in the United States.
The ACLU and DOJ had agreed to delay removal proceedings for Carmen until 11:59 p.m. Thursday but the DOJ must have been just kidding because
lead ACLU attorney Jennifer Chang Newell, who was participating in the court hearing via phone from her office in California, received an email during the hearing that said the mother and daughter were being deported.
During a brief recess, she told her colleagues the pair had been taken from a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, and were headed to the airport in San Antonio for an 8:15 a.m. flight.
Such jokers, Sessions and his gang.
To qualify for asylum, migrants must show that they have a fear of persecution in their native country based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a “particular social group,” a category that in the past has included victims of domestic violence and other abuse.
Because “female” is in fact a particular social group, and one that is particularly subject to violence. They don’t get to “identify” their way out of that situation.
The judge ordered Carmen and her daughter returned to the US.
Need some good news, right? Hope there are more like this to come.
Merely threatened to hold in contempt? Sigh. These people are so beyond contempt that words fail.