A Constitutional Clash In Three Acts
In three closely watched anti-immigration cases, the Trump administration continued its slo-mo constitutional defiance of the judicial branch …
Act I: Non-Responsiveness
Act II: Delay Shenanigans
Act III: Misdirection And Mischaracterization
Stone Cold Stonewalling
New details about the extent of the Trump administration’s stonewalling in the case of the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia were revealed in a court filing Thursday. After six weeks of what was originally supposed to be two weeks of expedited discovery, the government has provided virtually no meaningful discovery responses, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers report.
Normal discovery disputes would not usually be newsworthy, but this comes in the context of a contempt of court inquiry. The administration’s defiance on discovery and the associated gamesmanship cut against its already-dubious claims that it has complied with the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return – an order endorsed and echoed by the Supreme Court.
…
After the Trump administration late Wednesday asked for an extension of the May 30 deadline by which all discovery is to be completed, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers filed a blistering response demonstrating how little discovery the government has produced so far. It was already clear from public filings that the government had offered witnesses for deposition who had little or no personal knowledge of the facts of the case, in contravention of the judge’s order. The precise details of that defiance are unclear because many filings remain under seal.
The new details show how desultory the government’s document production has been, too. As of two weeks ago, the government had only produced 34 actual documents. In the subsequent two weeks it was given in which to produce rolling discovery, it coughed up a total of one additional partial document, according to Abrego Garcia’s filing.
In an important federal case in Massachusetts over whether deportees can be sent to third countries rather than their countries of origin, the Trump administration admitted Friday to a grievous error and managed to compound it in the process.
It’s a bit complicated so let me boil it down to its essentials:
- Background: A gay Guatemalan national who had a U.S. immigration judge order barring his removal to his home country because he feared continued persecution was instead deported to Mexico in February by the Trump administration, partly on the grounds that he had told ICE that he didn’t fear being sent to Mexico. That was odd because the man, identified only by the initials O.C.G., had previously testified that he had been targeted and raped in Mexico, his lawyers say.
- Thursday: The Trump DOJ abruptly cancelled the scheduled deposition of an ICE official “whom Defendants previously identified as giving Plaintiff O.C.G. notice of deportation to Mexico and recording his response of lack of fear,” O.C.G.’s lawyers later told the court.
- Friday: The Trump DOJ filed a “Notice of Errata” admitting that during the judge’s ordered discovery in the case it had been unable to “identify any officer who asked O.C.G. whether he had a fear of return to Mexico.” A key factual element of the Trump administration’s case had evaporated. But it got worse …
- Sunday: Lawyers for the deportee – who is now in hiding in Guatemala because he fears persecution as a gay man – filed an emergency motion pointing out, among other things, that the government’s filing about its own error revealed the deportees name and other information, further jeopardizing his safety despite a court order anonymizing his identifying information.
Still with me? In the course of admitting its error, the Trump administration outed the gay man who it had wrongfully deported in the first place.
This is what happens when you staff up with a bunch of sycophantic suck-ups and bimbos instead of competent personnel!
