Ms. L. -- More Specific Objections -- To Trump's Callous Two Year "ID The Stolen Kids" Plan...

There were important developments at another watershed hearing, this afternoon, in litigation involving another aspect of the ongoing Trump crime-sprees, against common human decency (the Ms. L. settled injunctions against his anti-immigrant vendettas -- ripping kids from their families).

At the telephonic status hearing before the able Judge Sabaw in San Diego this afternoon, the ACLU and other plaintiffs' lawyers laid out with specificity (as they said they would last Friday) the main ways in which the Trump administration is evincing sneering disdain for kids ripped from their parents (wholly unlawfully, it turns out).

Here's some of it -- but do go read it all:

. . . .[T]he government proposes a plan that would (1) allow an initial three months just to build a statistical model to prioritize the order in which the government will review files, and then (2) give the government another 21 months to review the files. Everything about the plan is flawed.

First, a list of separated children already very likely exists for children who were separated from their parents and released from ORR custody between April and June 26, 2018. This is because the government began assigning Family Unit numbers in April of 2018, enabling CBP to track families that were separated. By cross-referencing CBP’s list of separated children with ORR’s list of children released from ORR custody, the government could immediately identify the separated children it released to sponsors between April and June 2018, assuming that list does not already exist. That would immediately reduce the number of cases the government has to review. It is a serious breach if that list does in fact exist (or could have been immediately generated) and has not been mentioned by the government.

Second, even if the government must review all the cases for the full period at issue here (July 2017 – June 26, 2018), the government should be able to perform this task in three months or less based on its past practice during the initial reunification period last summer. Yet the government wants three months just to create a statistical model before even beginning to review any files. . . .

[Astonishingly,] the government is proposing to look only at a computer portal maintained by ORR. Dkt. 394-2 at ¶ 9. But those portals contain only a portion of the case managers’ paper files and frequently will contain no information about whether or not the child was separated. . . .

Ultimately, the government is simply refusing to prioritize the welfare of these children and families. The government initially argued that it should not even have to identify these families. Now it has submitted a plan that shows little regard for them and certainly not the urgency warranted where the lives of young children are at stake. The process of identifying the victims of the government’s separation policy is the first step to ensuring that no child is permanently orphaned. . . .

Now you know -- and there could be. . . up to an additional 47,000 of these children. What is wrong with Trump-hive-mind? I'm off grid for the night -- to cool off.

नमस्ते