Judge says US government may have 'acted in bad faith' as he weighs contempt over deportation order
Judge says US government may have 'acted in bad faith' as he weighs contempt over deportation order
A federal judge says the Trump administration may have “acted in bad faith” by trying to rush Venezuelan migrants out of the country before a court could step in to block their deportations to El Salvador.
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Yeah, and after 30 or 40 more hearings, he might consider threatening to possibly hold hearings to consider the possibility of maybe sending Trump a frowny face letter if he violates court orders another few dozen times.
Notice how not a single one of these judges is actually seriously threatening consequences. Because they know they have no enforcement power. They know that Trump's response is going to be some variant of "What the fuck you gonna do about it if I don't?". They know they have zero actual answers for that, and they know exactly what it means when they are unable to answer.
They're just stringing things along holding on to the illusion of power and hoping that people simply don't notice that they hold no real power.
Even if the marshals refuse to comply, the federal courts do have the power to hold people accountable. They have enforcement power. They're just too chicken shit to use it. Federal courts can deputize people to enforce orders, just like an Old West judge appointing a posse to round up an outlaw. A judge could deputize volunteers from the community and give them orders to round up people who refuse to follow court orders. I'm sure you would have zero problem finding a few hundred people willing to volunteer and show up with their own weapons to enforce a lawful court order.
If you think that a comparative handful of volunteers with some self-supplied weaponry has any chance of going up against the US Marshalls, I've got beachfront property on Mars you may be interested in. These people would be rounded up and disappeared to El Salvador by dinner. What you're saying sounds like a great inspirational speech leading into the final act of a movie plot, but it's leading lambs to the slaughter in reality.
And that's assuming you can even find enough volunteers. For the past couple of months, all these people that said they would be the ones to stand up and fight Trump and his power grabs end up being the first ones to capitulate in hopes of not being shipped off to some black site in El Salvador.
Who's Boasburg going to hold in contempt? Trump? He's already been declared immune. Bondi? Yeah, good luck with that. Now let's see him round up a couple of hundred volunteers and send them to DC to arrest her. What exactly do you think the end result of that is going to be? A bunch of volunteers with zero experience and who are just hoping to make it home tonight are going to be told by US Marshalls that outnumber them, have better weapons, more training, and body armor are going to tell them to go fuck themselves with a chainsaw. They absolutely will not have the ability to physically enforce Boasburg's decision.
Unlikely that this will happen but if we are playing a game of escalation perhaps he could deputise people with access to millenary equipment. Remember, the armed forces pledge allegiance to the constitution and nobody else. They also have the duty to not follow an illegal order.