Trump Admin Laments South Sudan Deportation Debacle It Created
INSIDE: Yunseo Chung ... Marco Rubio ... Elon Musk
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Stranded In Djibouti
It had been two weeks since U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of Massachusetts ordered the Trump administration to allow the detainees it was trying to ship off to South Sudan to talk to their lawyers – and as of Wednesday, the lawyers told the Supreme Court, they had still not heard from the detainees who have been stuck in Djibouti this whole time.
Then yesterday the Trump administration filed a perplexing declaration telling Judge Murphy about all the hardship ICE agents are enduring trying to guard the detainees in the harsh conditions of the U.S. base in Djibouti. The WaPo headline captured the administration-centric perspective: “ICE officers stuck in Djibouti shipping container with deported migrants.” Who is stuck with whom exactly?
The decisions to deport them to South Sudan and to keep them temporarily in Djibouti are entirely the administration’s, despite what it has told the Supreme Court. It was the administration’s idea in the first place, as an incensed Murphy has pointed out. He’s already called out the Trump DOJ on this for claiming he forced them into this predicament. In the May hearing, the Trump DOJ floated this solution as an alternative to bringing the detainees back to the United States. Murphy took them up on it, but explicitly said the administration could always bring them back stateside.
The NYT has new reporting on how all this unfolded. As of yesterday, the detainees’ legal team had still not heard from them.
Judge Orders Expedited Discovery In Cristian Case
As the government stonewalls in another of the “facilitate” cases, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland has ordered weekly status reports and expedited discovery into what the Trump administration is doing to retrieve Cristian, the anonymous Venezuelan wrongfully deported under the Alien Enemies Act in violation of an existing settlement agreement. Gallagher also told Cristian’s lawyers that they are “free to seek sanctions on an expedited basis” if the Trump administration doesn’t engage in discovery in good faith.
The case is proceeding in striking parallel alongside another Maryland case.
It was two months ago when an irate U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered expedited discovery in the Abrego Garcia case. At the time it was a huge deal that portended contempt of court proceedings against the Trump administration for defying her order to “facilitate” the wrongfully deported Salvadoran’s return. But that proceeding has dragged on and almost become background noise. Still, this week Xinis granted leave to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to file a motion for sanctions for the government’s discovery violations. Some of that dispute is under seal, but we know from some public proceedings in the case that the Trump administration has been barely responsive to the discovery Xinis ordered to determine whether she should find government officials in contempt of court.
Need More On Boasberg’s Big AEA Ruling?
D’oh!
ICE agents mistakenly detained a U.S. marshal last month during an immigration sweep at a federal building in Tucson
Shitty People Doing Shitty Things
Even amid all the other lousy conduct by the Trump administration in the anti-immigration cases, this case stands out.
The administration has refused to accept a judge’s proposal that lawyers for Columbia University student Yunseo Chung, a pro-Palestinian protestor who has avoided arrest for months, simply accept service, which would trigger that start of removal proceedings. “The government is simply refusing to take yes for an answer,” her lawyer quipped.
The government’s insistence that it will only accept arresting Chung has baffled U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the Southern District of New York. Yesterday, she put a stop to it, issuing an injunction prohibiting the government from arresting Chung or transferring her out of jurisdiction of her court.
The judge then went further in suggesting what this is all really about, ordering the government to give 72-hours notice before the detain Chung on new trumped-up charges to give her a chance “to be heard regarding whether any such asserted basis for detention constitutes a pretext for First Amendment retaliation.”
Federal Judge Quickly Halts New Trump Attack On Harvard
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs of Boston issued a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security blocking it from enforcing a ban on international students trying to enroll at Harvard.
Harvard immediately filed suit over Trump’s proclamation on Wednesday, was in court by Thursday, and won the TRO later in the day.
Strange Days In Ann Arbor
The Guardian: “The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.”
U.S. Imposes Sanctions On ICC Judges
Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave life to President Trump’s February executive order targeting the the International Criminal Court by sanctioning four of its judges. The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets of the judges in retaliation for two of the judges voting to authorize an ICC investigation of U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and for the other two authorizing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Fox In The Henhouse Alert
DNI Tulsi Gabbard has installed one of her top advisers in a position within the office of the inspector general of the intelligence community, which is investigating the Signal group chat fiasco in which Gabbard participated.
Struggling To Feel The Schadenfreude
The Trump-Musk blowup is dominating political news coverage today, and I’d feel remiss not noting it. But I’m not sure what to do with it. Both men are so inauthentic and their transactional “relationship” so contrived, that nothing about the public rupture feels any more real than their bromance did. I can’t get any more invested in it than I would a pro wrestling story arc.
I will grant that the performative breakup is emblematic of the current moment both in its inauthenticity and in the Gilded Age histrionics of the billionaire man-child v. billionaire man-child.
What DOGE Was Really Up To
Adam Bonica continues his trenchant analysis of the DOGE rampage by comparing its layoffs to the budget increases in the House GOP’s big bill:
‘We Cannot Build Bananas’
Fallout Continues For Law Firms That Capitulated
The executive director of the Skadden Foundation has resigned after the Skadden law firm struck a deal with President Trump to avoid being targeted with a punitive executive order. “My hope is that Skadden charts a path that respects the rule of law and honors the core values of the Skadden Foundation,” Kathleen Rudenstein wrote in a post announcing her resignation.
Until one of these judges starts putting people in jail it's just hot air.
Well, I can imagine now that the sizable Arab-American community in the state of Michigan is indeed having second thoughts on campaigning against Kamala Harris last November. For whatever reason, UM and state authorities are really laying the wood to supporters of a free Palestine and those condemning the Israeli mass slaughter of Gazans, and surely to God there's some buyer's remorse in assisting a tRump win in MI.