A federal judge on Thursday threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt after discovering that the Trump administration attempted to transfer a woman and her daughter out of the country while an appeal hearing for their deportation was underway.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan granted a request from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for an emergency order to halt the expedited removal of immigrants seeking asylum from domestic abuse and gang violence after he learned the government had put a plaintiff in the case and her daughter on a flight to Central America.
The ACLU, which is challenging Sessions’s decision to no longer grant asylum to the victims of domestic abuse and gang violence, said the government had assured the court on Wednesday no plaintiff in the case would be deported before midnight.
“This is pretty outrageous,” Sullivan said, according to The Washington Post. “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,” he said. “This is not acceptable.” – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday unloaded on a federal judge who ordered the administration to reinstate the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy last week, saying the ruling was “improper” and vowing to keep up enforcement efforts against illegal immigration “aggressively.”
Sessions added that the judge had effectively “eviscerated” the legal authority of the executive branch and Congress, and strongly suggested the administration would appeal the ruling.
The Trump administration announced last year it would end DACA, which was implemented by the Obama administration using executive authority and protects illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. However, the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to agree to a permanent statutory replacement for the program, despite several legislative attempts.
Federal judges have since barred the administration from ending the program entirely, saying it would be acceptable only to shut down future enrollment in DACA because existing applicants had already relied on it. But the ruling by U.S. District Judge John Bates went a step further by ordering authorities to essentially reinstate DACA in full.
In a statement, Sessions decried Bates’ ruling as one of a “number of decisions in which courts have improperly used judicial power to steer, enjoin, modify, and direct executive policy.” – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [contentcards url=”http://thehill.com/latino/401128-judge-threatens-to-hold-sessions-in-contempt-after-attempted-deportation-of-migrant” target=”_blank”]