Courts

Federal Judge Does What Trump’s Executive Order Does Not: Orders Family Reunification

I do wonder if the Supreme Court will have an emergency Klan rally to overturn the order.

By Elie Mystal on June 27, 2018 1:08 pm

(PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump’s executive order “ending” family separation by jailing families was illegal on its face the minute it was signed.

Last night a federal judge in California, a George W. Bush appointee, started the hard work of actually rolling back the kidnapping and hostage taking authorized by the Trump administration. From ABC:

After weeks of public outcry, a federal judge in California has temporarily halted the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border and ordered that children taken from their parents must be reunited within 30 days.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw late Tuesday said the Trump administration has for months indiscriminately “engaged in a widespread practice of separating migrant families,” including those who entered the country legally seeking asylum. The government, Sabraw wrote, was not prepared for the influx of separated children and had no plan in place for reunification.

Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee, also ordered that children younger than 5 years old must be reunited with parents within 14 days and that all parents must be allowed to speak to their children within 10 days if they’ve not already been in contact.

The court also prohibited, absent a waiver, the deportation of parents without their children, and it said that in the future children can only be separated from a parent if that parent poses a threat to the child. If a parent is released from Department of Homeland Security custody, the child must be released to them.

This process of separating children was never about… process. It was always about terrorism. Sabraw is trying to put an end to it.

Will the government appeal? If so, we’ve seen that the Supreme Court has decidedly thrown its hat in with Nazis and bigots. We are a terrible nation, and my faith in any court’s ability to arrest our descent has evaporated.

Federal judge rules children, parents separated at border must be reunited within 30 days [ABC News]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.