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Comment by KittenInABox | Hacker News Reader

Could anyone with a legal background explain to me why a judge hasn't declared all deportations to be on pause until legality is established for this pattern of detaining people without charging of anything, flying them out of the country before a petition can be filed wrt their detainment, and then claiming that because they're out of the country the US Gov't is powerless to facilitate their return?

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IANAL, but, aiui, judges are generally limited to providing relief to the people in the case at hand. This generally works ok, the precedent gets set, and people knowing they will loose in court change their behavior.

But these are not normal people

At some point it seems like this can raise questions about whether they are flagrantly ignoring habeas corpus. But I'm sure we will all learn soon that governments disappearing people is what the Founders originally intended.

IANAL as well. This could work as massive interstate RICO case.. This is exactly how the FBI finally took down the entire mafia/five families in power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corru...

I don’t think one needs a legal background to understand that the rule of law has been compromised.

You should check Eugene Volokh's space ( https://reason.com/volokh/ ).

I would reply with the point made by the Supreme Court of the USA, that the "courts cannot interfere with prerogatives of the executive branch". Which of course leaves big questions about power and apparent abuse of the same, and about what cynics call "collaterals".

One detail in clearer terms: if «federal courts [had] no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way», where lies the responsibility of the State towards its victims?

They did. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that while the President is in charge of foreign policy, and can deport people however, these people have to see a court room before they are deported. Yesterday, Trump made various statements that heavily leaned towards not obeying that order. The rest of the Republican Party supports these actions.

That's where we're at at the moment.

judges have been declaring a lot of things in the US, but the executive has stopped pretending that law enforcement is independent. you can produce judgements until you're blue in the face, but nothing happens unless you have somebody to enforce it.

Well also, the party in power has spent the last 30 years specifically packing courts at all levels with friendly partisan judges. And openly talking about doing so while doing it.

And still, somehow, they can’t find enough judges to cosign their malfeasance.

One wonders what the point of packing the courts was, if they weren’t going to bother upholding them anyway.

Left-wingers appoint left-leaning judges; right-wingers appoint right-leaning ones. Are you somehow asserting that left-wing is a "ground truth" and that only the right is partisan? You can observe the same thing happening when the fifth circuit messes with democrats in power as when the ninth messes with republicans.

right now the right winger courts are appalled at what the right winger executive is doing, so I don't think it's the right time to be "both sides"ing this.

You are trying to put words in my mouth for partisan points. Don't.

Mitch McConnell talking about "the judges project" is miles away from appointments under Democratic administrations. You can read about it:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-mcconnell-and...

The Democratic party did not and does not have the stomach for doing the same, even when their voters have called for it. If you think otherwise, prove it.

This is a direct response to what began as systematic abuse of the court system by left-wingers and is an attempt to restore the status quo. You can find probably the most prominent early example of this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_(Supreme_Court)

Nearly a century ago, FDR was already threatening to pack the court if the justices didn't quit striking down his blatantly unconstitutional legislation. It continued steadily from there with the Warren court bench-legislating at a historic scale.

You are misrepresenting what the actual status quo is to make an attempt to restore it appear malicious or power-hungry.

What status quo? They're sending innocents to a concentration camp against the wishes of the supreme court that they packed with their own allies.

Respectfully, talking about the Democratic party 100 years ago is an incredibly shaky basis for your argument.

Packing courts with partisans is malicious and power hungry no matter how you spin it. "Restoring balance" is rhetoric used by all kinds of historical leaders you do not want to be compared to...

Dig up.

It's not really, because courts move slowly. We're just now starting to see the repair of some things like chevron deference. Wickard v. Filburn still hasn't been overturned. It's just as inconsistent to say "we should leave things tilted forever" as it is to say "we should restore balance".

is sending innocents to a concentration camp in defiance of the supreme court restoring balance, in your opinion?

Exactly. The myriad of unconstitutional behaviors, and decisions which ignore precedent and the laws as written which are friendly to what Trump is doing is hardly conservative or liberal. It is tilted for sure, but in a way which needs correcting - in the direction of a society where the powerful have to obey laws.

This is a pretty loaded question. Innocents is something many would disagree with. Anyone who immigrates illegally at any time is guilty. Concentration camp is also a pretty controversial term, and one I would disagree with.

I do not care for Trump's actions, and I don't believe I wrote an explicit defense of them. I will happily defend the overall policy of sending every single illegal back. The recent comments to which y'all are replying aren't addressing Trump's disregard for law, they're addressing your claim that the right has been abusing or weaponizing the justice system.

> Anyone who immigrates illegally at any time is guilty.

I don't see Elon getting sent to a prison that nobody ever gets released from against the orders of the supreme court. It sounds like you're just apologising for fascism at this point.

I’ve seen no evidence that musk was here illegally. I’m not looking to carve out a special case for him though; show me proof.

It sounds like you’re looking for an excuse to defend illegals.

Seems all major parties have been

*>"packing courts at all levels with friendly partisan judges. And openly talking about doing so while doing it." <^

from the beginning.

I know I have repeatedly emphasized this fundamental problem in various conversations lately, but it is a fatal flaw of our system of laws, which is stupid and broken and exists only in former English colonies. Under our hallowed and majestic system, a person has to gain standing to ask the court for relief, which often means the easily foreseeable bad thing has to have already happened to them.

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