Early this morning I stepped outdoors into the thirty-degree climate we’re experiencing within the Arizona desert. My across-the-street US Citizen Mexican neighbor was loading up his pickup truck to go do some landscaping work. His is likely one of the few pickup vans I’ve seen with the backend field stuffed with the necessities wanted to go to work. A lot of the different ones I see should not working – associated autos.
The opposite pickup vans round listed below are akin to the toy Tonka vans boys would play with as children. Some haven’t gotten this out of their system but. Vrooming away . . .
Anyhow my neighbor doesn’t appear to be too involved about all of this going down. I’m wondering about whether or not SCOTUS will slap Trump down in just a few ranges to the truth of:
“Hey you! You are a president and not a dictator reality.”
After which? Would Trump obey the identical court docket that has created a pathway for him to disrespect the nation’s structure, legal guidelines, and its residents? The confrontation to actuality is actually early on in his rein, oops I meant presidency.
Middle Stage: Immigration
The day began off with the Justice Division’s new administration directing prosecutors to analyze, and even prosecute, what they understand as state or native efforts to hinder immigration enforcement.
It’s an injection of poison into the bloodstream of democracy. Trump is threatening to prosecute those that don’t go together with his plans—authorized or not, according to state coverage or not, a part of their job or not. The message is, bend your will to the chief or else. That’s autocracy.
Inside DOJ memo directing federal prosecutors to analyze and prosecute their state and native companions who fail to help Trump’s immigration plans
The DOJ memo claims that the Supremacy Clause of the Structure requires state and native officers to conform. However that’s mistaken—state officers can’t be compelled to implement federal regulation. Simply ask Supreme Court docket Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the bulk opinion in Printz v. U.S. The problem in that case was whether or not state and native regulation enforcement officers may very well be required to implement interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, as an example, by conducting background checks on potential handgun purchasers. Justice Scalia held that the federal authorities couldn’t require states to implement or enact federal regulatory applications. Doing so would violate the states’ sovereignty.
In different phrases, what’s occurring right here is unconstitutional based on a extensively honored conservative Justice. Presumably, even an performing official on the Justice Division is able to studying the regulation and figuring out that what they’re ordering Justice Division staff throughout the nation to do is opposite to well-established regulation.
The memo is signed by performing deputy legal professional common and former Trump lawyer Emil Bove. That makes it troublesome to keep away from questions on whether or not this memo is the product of DOJ taking express course on legal instances from the White Home, if not from the President himself. Though the courts can be unlikely to let DOJ prosecute on this unconstitutional idea, that received’t cease this Justice Division from attempting to coerce state and native officers into going alongside as a result of it’s simpler. Federal officers who’re prepared to can (ab)use their energy to make life extraordinarily disagreeable for officers who refuse to bend the knee. That makes your entire state of affairs all of the extra disturbing.
Immigration-related offenses have been amongst DOJ’s most prosecuted instances for greater than 1 / 4 of a century. They have been the commonest instances introduced in fiscal 12 months 2023, when 30% of DOJ’s instances concerned immigration offenses. U.S. Sentencing Fee information displays that 19,226 defendants have been sentenced for immigration offenses in 2023, which was a rise of 8.9% enhance over 2022—in different phrases, the variety of instances was rising throughout the Biden administration.
Now, Trump’s DOJ is demanding that federal prosecutors dedicate much more assets to the instances, which suggests different instances will go undone. However they’re additional elevating these instances, requiring frequent reporting on statistics.
They’re additionally requiring that any declination to prosecute a case should be reported to the Deputy Legal professional Basic’s workplace, utilizing an “urgent report,” a course of for advising the DAG of ultra-important issues. Pressing stories are normally reserved for the sorts of developments an legal professional common wouldn’t wish to examine on the entrance web page of the New York Instances with out prior warning. Not for declinations on misdemeanor instances.
Immigration now supplants all different legal priorities, requiring activity forces that concentrate on worldwide terrorism, violent crime, and drug trafficking to raise immigration prosecutions. However there are two realities right here. First, there are solely so many assets to go round at DOJ. If immigration will get the lion’s share, different kinds of essential instances will go undone. And by monitoring numbers on this method, Trump’s administration is incentivizing U.S. Attorneys’ places of work to dedicate assets to low-hanging fruit, maybe even to misdemeanor immigration instances. As a substitute of specializing in violent offenders and re-offenders, DOJ might be doing instances that don’t make communities safer in order that Donald Trump can have political speaking factors. And within the meantime, different instances that affect neighborhood security will go undone. You’ll be able to learn the total memo right here.
As these adjustments at DOJ take form, there might be a listening to on an emergency movement to remain Trump’s plan to strip individuals of birthright citizenship in a case introduced by Washington State legal professional common, Nick Brown, alongside along with his counterparts in Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon. The attorneys common are asking the court docket to briefly restrain Trump “from implementing or enforcing the Citizenship Stripping Order.”
The lawsuit was filed within the U.S. District Court docket for the Western District of Washington. The argument being made is that Trump’s government order to finish birthright citizenship in the USA violates the 14th Modification of the Structure, in addition to the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. This case, or the same one, will find yourself within the Supreme Court docket. The Court docket must resolve whether or not Trump can override the Structure, organising the primary direct battle of this administration between the rule of regulation and the president who believes he can ignore it.
It’s day three of the two.0 Trump presidency, and we’re already speaking a few constitutional disaster that’s taking form.
We’re on this collectively,
