Update on Abrego Garcia

[John Williams]

A judge has ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the guy who got arrested and sent to the notorious jail in El Salvador by mistake, be released immigration detention.  I’ve lost track of all the twists and turns in this story, but Wikipedia has a long account.  As background for the most recent developments, however, recall that after Abrego Garcia got brought back from El Salvador, the government charged him with human trafficking and other offenses, based on an incident years before in Tennessee that resulted in no charges at the time (those charges still stand).  The government offered him a deal that he could go to Costa Rica, which was willing to take him, if he pled guilty; he declined to plead guilty, but said he would accept being deported to Costa Rica.  Now, the administration wants to deport him to Africa, and claimed that Costa Rica is no longer willing to accept him.  It became clear in a recent hearing, however, that the person representing the government had no real knowledge about the case, and that the case may have no legal foundation in the first place (here is a 2.5 minute run-down). Then the Costa Rican Minister of Security said that Costa Rica was still willing to take him and give him legal status. 

The government’s bumbling and dissembling in this case fits into a pattern that has generated a lot of talk about the administration’s loss of the “presumption of regularity”  before federal judges.   As one judge put it (see discussion starting at p. 19:

Generations of presidential administrations and public officials have validated this underlying premise of the presumption of regularity: their actions writ large have raised little question that they act ‘in obedience to [their] duty.’  Over the last six months, however, courts have seen instance after instance of departures from this tradition. … In just six months, the President of the United States may have forfeited the right to such a presumption of regularity.

The website “Just Security” has a long list of examples.   

   

[John Williams]

The Trump Administration does not give up easily.  Abrego Garcia was released yesterday, but then an immigration judge (part of the executive branch, i.e., the Trump Administration) tried to correct a flaw in the government's case retroactively, and ordered Abrego Garcia to report to the immigration court at 8 am this morning.  Instead, his lawyers went back to the district court judge, and got a temporary restraining order (attached) blocking that.  A website called Talking Points Memo has a good summary.

[dr dick]

The wealth of the people in the Trump administration is estimated to be $390,000,000,000.00