Team Trump Renews Baseless Appeals To Ninth Circuit -- Over Kids Held Beyond The Allowed 20 Days...

Team Trump is appealing the requirement established by a May 22, 2020 order -- that it provide additional reports, under oath, now (allowing the officers involved to be charged with crimes, since prior reports have "lacked. . . candor" -- in the words of several able federal trial court judges), as to minors still not released from ORR custody after 21 days.

The appeal to the Ninth Circuit (where Trump will lose) was filed overnight, and is an appeal from this larger order. I realize it requires effort, to track people one has kidnapped -- without bothering to track the names and parental affiliations of each, at the time of detention. But it is ludicrous to argue, during a pandemic, that record-keeping should be eased, because Team Trump cannot solve the hideous state of affairs it itself created, without expending lots of additional resources. These are. . . children after-all. Good lord.

Here is the meat of what Team Trump wants relief from, below. I will be shocked if the Ninth Circuit will allow it; and in any event, Trump will all but certainly be out of office by the time the case is set for argument there, and Mr. Biden will have dropped the above appeal, and released all these children, forthwith by then -- mooting the appeal:

. . . .The ICE Juvenile Coordinator shall report on compliance with the above order to expeditiously release or transfer affected minors from the FRCs. For each minor detained at an FRC for more than 20 days who is deemed a “flight risk,” and not released or transferred pursuant to the above directive requiring expeditious release, the ICE Juvenile Coordinator shall give a detailed individualized explanation of why that minor is a flight risk (cursory explanations such as “In custody -- pending IJ hearing/decision,” “pending USCIS response,” “plaintiff in a pending lawsuit,” or any other justification that the Court has already rejected as being insufficient indicia of imminent removal shall not be acceptable explanations). . . .

For each minor who remains detained at an FRC for more than 20 days, the absence of a suitable sponsor, a parent/guardian’s declination of waiver of Flores rights, or a prior unexplained failure to appear at a scheduled hearing would be a satisfactory explanation for continued detention if that explanation is verified in a declaration by an ICE representative under penalty of perjury; and. . . .

The ICE Juvenile Coordinator shall report on the status of conditions at the Cowlitz County Juvenile Detention Center (“Cowlitz”) and Northern Oregon Regional Corrections (“NORCOR”) detention facilities, including specific reasons why B.B.B., A.F.P.P., and K.J.A.B. remain in detention. None of these minors who age out shall be sent to an adult detention facility pending resolution of this inquiry. If these Defendants remain in detention, the report shall include a detailed explanation demonstrating flight risk and/or danger to the community. . . .

It would have been unfathomable under the Obama, or even Bush 43 administrations, that an ICE agent would have to be ordered to provide for the safety of minors in custody. But here we are. And the GOP leaders in the Senate are effectively blocking a legislative fix for this crime against humanity.

This is very much more of a bad thing, as those leaders have also blocked the protections added to the Voting Rights Act by the late Rep. John Lewis (and passed by large majorities in the US House) -- for over 250 days,now. Yet most of them have offered hollow platitudes, about how important his voting and civil rights work was -- from 1963 to 1969. Here's an idea: want to honor him (and the causes of humanity he spent his life advancing)? Pass his Act, and tell your puppet president to sign it, or there will be no more stays at Trump resorts by any federal employee. [We will pass it, after November 2020, when they (McConnell, primarily) are out, anyway -- and Joe Biden will sign it into law.] Out.

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