The Big Loser

 

Will Trump abide by ANY court ruling?

Trump 2.0 - Knives out

 

Illinois is the test case

 

Finding his limits

The Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by the Trump administration to review California's so-called sanctuary laws, which limit cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.

Two justices, conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, were listed by the court as having been in favor of reviewing the law, which was upheld last year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

  The Hill

Suckups. But...not Kavanaugh?

At a 2018 round table on immigration, President Trump said the California legislation "provides safe harbor to some of the most vicious and violent offenders on Earth, like MS-13 gang members, putting innocent men, women, and children at the mercy of these sadistic criminals."

That same year, the administration challenged the laws in court, leading to the 9th Circuit decision.

[...]

With the denial, the Supreme Court let stand the lower court's resolution in favor of three California sanctuary laws, which limited law enforcement cooperation on immigration and banned state and local authorities from using their resources to enforce federal immigration laws.

[...]

The decision is a rare high court setback for Trump on immigration, as the administration has previously convinced the Supreme Court to flip circuit court decisions on immigration.

It also comes as the court is due to decide the legality of Trump's order to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a decision that will likely frame the immigration debate through the November elections.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It will only get worse

The Trump administration is deploying law enforcement tactical units from the southern border as part of a supercharged arrest operation in sanctuary cities across the country, an escalation in the president’s battle against localities that refuse to participate in immigration enforcement.

The specially trained officers are being sent to cities including Chicago and New York to boost the enforcement power of local ICE officers, according to two officials who are familiar with the secret operation. Additional agents are expected to be sent to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, New Orleans, Detroit and Newark, N.J.

[...]

The deployment of the teams will run from February through May, according to an email sent to Customs and Border Protection personnel, which was read to The New York Times by one official familiar with the planning.

[...]

Among the agents being deployed to sanctuary cities are members of the elite tactical unit known as BORTAC, which acts essentially as the SWAT team of the Border Patrol. With additional gear such as stun grenades and enhanced Special Forces-type training, including sniper certification, the officers typically conduct high-risk operations targeting individuals who are known to be violent, many of them with extensive criminal records.

[...]

In sanctuary cities, the BORTAC agents will be asked to support interior officers in run-of-the-mill immigration arrests, the officials said.

[...]

Gil Kerlikowske, the former commissioner of C.B.P., which oversees tactical units along the border, said sending the officers to conduct immigration enforcement within cities, where they are not trained to work, could escalate situations that are already volatile. He called the move a “significant mistake.”

  NYT

That, of course, depends upon your goal.

The goal of the new joint operation, one of the officials said, was to increase arrests in the sanctuary jurisdictions by at least 35 percent.

The operation reflects an increasingly hawkish approach to immigration enforcement, following the firings and resignations of leaders who have been viewed in the White House as unwilling to take the harsh steps Mr. Trump and his advisers view as necessary to slow illegal immigration.

GOP, the party of states' rights

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Impeach, for the love of Pete

Forget the typo; what in hell is this "we hereby demand" shit?  Is he the president, or is he some failing company, say like the Trump Organization?

Also..."just out"?



Remember when the White House clean-up folks issued a statement that said “This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion” - two days ago?




The New York Times did not apologize to him.  Their reporters always ask for comment before publishing.  They don't have non-existent sources.  They don't have to do anything to make him look bad; he does that just fine on his own.  In 6 years, they will still be here.  Hopefully, however, he will be gone.  If they're not here, it's because Congress didn't do it's job and impeach this asshole, and he became the dictator he keeps trying to be. 

Also, their subscribers are not and were not fleeing.

Sanctuary city update

He's admitting it.





If they'd know he was going to tweet that, the White House wouldn't have had to put out that statement to the Post  about it being only a idea floated out, rejected, and done with.






...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Impeach already

White House officials have tried to pressure U.S. immigration authorities to release detainees onto the streets of “sanctuary cities” to retaliate against President Trump’s political adversaries, according to Department of Homeland Security officials and email messages reviewed by The Washington Post.


Trump administration officials have proposed transporting detained immigrants to sanctuary cities at least twice in the past six months — once in November, as a migrant caravan approached the U.S. southern border, and again in February, amid a standoff with Democrats over funding for Trump’s border wall.

[...]

White House officials first broached the plan in a Nov. 16 email, asking officials at several agencies whether members of the caravan could be arrested at the border and then bused “to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities,” places where local authorities have refused to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.

The White House told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the plan was intended to alleviate a shortage of detention space but also served to send a message to Democrats.
  WaPo

Pretty telling when you want to do something that would be beneficial to the people you're using as pawns in an attempt to stick it to your adversaries.

The attempt at political retribution raised alarm within ICE, with a top official responding that it was rife with budgetary and liability concerns, and noting that “there are PR risks as well.”

[...]

“It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out,” said one congressional investigator who has spoken to one of the whistleblowers. “What happened here is that Stephen Miller called people at ICE, said if they’re going to cut funding, you’ve got to make sure you’re releasing people in Pelosi’s district and other congressional districts.”

[...]

ICE’s legal department rejected the idea as inappropriate and rebuffed the administration.

Another reason Trump is purging DHS.

The proposal faded when House Democrats ultimately relented on their demand for a decrease in the number of detention beds, a final sticking point in budget talks between the White House and House Democrats.

[...]

“This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion,” [a] White House statement said.

[...]

“These outrageous sanctuary cities are grave threats to public safety and national security,” Trump said in a speech to the Safe Neighborhoods Conference in Kansas City, Mo., on Dec. 7, less than a month after the White House asked ICE about moving detainees to such cities. “Each year, sanctuary cities release thousands of known criminal aliens from their custody and right back into the community. So they put them in, and they have them, and they let them go, and it drives you people a little bit crazy, doesn’t it, huh?”

[...]

“The extent of this administration’s cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated,” said Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne. “Using human beings — including little children — as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable.”

What do you expect from a despicable president?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  He's admitting it.




If they'd know he was going to tweet that, the White House wouldn't have had to put out that statement about it being only a idea floated out, rejected, and done with.

The resistance

In a 58-page opinion, Judge Harry Leinenweber rebuked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration’s efforts taken to penalize sanctuary cities, CNN reported.

Leinenweber moved to strike down the underlying law, known as Section 1373, which mandates that local governments share the immigration status of individuals with the federal government.

The ruling from Leinenweber, an appointee of former President Reagan, currently only applies to Chicago, though the judge reportedly said he intends for the ruling to be applied across the country.

  The Hill

Okay, NOW she's done it

President Donald Trump repeatedly promised to stop giving federal money to cities that refuse to cooperate with U.S. agencies trying to enforce immigration law.

But his embattled homeland security secretary recently awarded nearly $1.7 billion in grants, some related to immigration, to states and localities across the nation, including so-called sanctuary cities, according to three people with knowledge of the grants.

Kirstjen Nielsen authorized the grants despite objections of her top staff — a decision that has angered supporters who trusted Trump to make good on his campaign pledge.

[...]

The decision to include sanctuary cities in the current round of funding was made in the days leading up to the awarding of the grants after a discussion within the department that ended with Nielsen deciding to include the jurisdictions, according to the three people, two of whom used to work at the department and remain in close contact with employees.

  McClatchy

Those assholes Zinke, Pruitt, et al., who spend taxpayer money on themselves are fine, but Nielsen won't be around much longer.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump loses in sanctuary cities lawsuit

A federal judge has sided with the city of Los Angeles and issued a nationwide injunction prohibiting the Justice Department from tying the allocation of federal grants to the participation of local police departments in helping enforce federal immigration laws.

[...]

Los Angeles filed the suit last year after the DOJ declined the LAPD's request for certain grants. LAPD has routinely applied and received grants under the previous administration. But this time, the DOJ had asked LAPD to give immigration agents access to city jails and share information regarding arrestees. But the police department declined to do so.

[...]

The ruling is a significant blow to President Trump's executive order, signed last year, which threatened to withhold certain federal funds from "sanctuary cities."

  Axios

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Score one for "sanctuary cities"

A federal judge on Tuesday barred the Trump administration from enforcing part of President Trump's January executive order that took aim at sanctuary cities — concluding that a challenged provision threatening federal funding for those cities is "clearly unconstitutional."

US District Judge William H. Orrick issued a nationwide preliminary injunction — sought by San Francisco and Santa Clara counties in California — against enforcement of Section 9(a) of the January 25, 2017, executive order.

The section of the order purported to give Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly broad authority to deny funds to cities that "refuse to comply" with a law that requires cooperation between state and local governments and federal immigration authorities.

[...]

In reviewing the claims raised by the counties, Orrick found that the order likely violates separation of power principles, as well as the Fifth and Tenth Amendments.

[...]

"Today, the rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our Nation," a late-night statement from the White House press secretary's office declared.

[...]

"San Francisco, and cities like it, are putting the well-being of criminal aliens before the safety of our citizens, and those city officials who authored these policies have the blood of dead Americans on their hands."

Although the Justice Department argued a narrow interpretation of what the executive order authorized in court, Orrick pointed to the "plain language" of the order and the president's own words — Trump called the order "a weapon" to fight cities that opposed his immigration policies — in concluding that the narrow reading "is not legally plausible."

  Buzzfeed

Once again, using government to settle scores.

Let me guess, this just makes The Most Notable Loser even more pissed off at Jeff Sessions.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A Small Bit of Good News

A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked the nation’s most extreme anti–“sanctuary city” law on Wednesday, two days before it was set to take effect. The preliminary injunction is a setback for the state’s Republican leaders, as well as the Trump administration’s crackdown on sanctuary cities.

Senate Bill 4, which Texas governor Greg Abbott signed into law in May, requires local law enforcement officials to comply with federal requests to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally. Those who fail to comply could be fined $25,500 a day, ejected from office, or jailed for up to a year. The law also allows law enforcement officials to ask about the immigration status of anyone they detain.

Several Texas cities — including Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin — sued to stop the law, arguing that it could lead to racial profiling, make it difficult for local police to combat crime, and spark a backlash that would hurt the state’s economy. The Trump administration’s Justice Department has filed statements of interest siding with the state of Texas.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled that several parts of the law are likely to be found unconstitutional.He said a provision saying local authorities may not “adopt, enforce, or endorse” policies limiting the enforcement of immigration laws violates the officials’ right to free speech.

  NY Magazine

That sounds like a long reach, but I'll take it.

According to the Texas Tribune, Garcia did allow the provision that permits police officers to question people they detain on their immigration status. However, he said they can’t use that information to arrest the person, they can only share it with the proper authorities.

Not much, but better than nothing.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Speaking of Disaster in Texas and the Border Wall

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday the state is accepting Mexico's offer to help get Texas back on its feet in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

[...]

Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, the consul general in Austin, applauded the governor's decision. He said assistance of vehicles, boats and food will start arriving in Texas within days.

[...]

"Texas and Mexico share more than half the border," [Carlos Sada, Mexico's undersecretary for North American relations] said. "There are families, marriages, businesses that bind our two sides. This is about being good neighbors."

[...]

In Washington, following a meeting at the State Department, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thanked Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray Caso for its "wide range of assistance."

"It was very generous of Mexico to offer their help at a very, very challenging time for our citizens back in Texas," he said.

[...]

Mexico, in a diplomatic note Tuesday, provided a long list of items that includes troops, convoys of food, medicine, portable showers and water.

  Dallas News

Will there be some crow for Trump?

President Donald Trump has not responded publicly to Mexico's aid, though on Tuesday he accepted an offer from Singapore to lend four of its CH-47 Chinook helicopters for rescue efforts.

BUILD THAT WALL!

On Sunday, as waters rose across southeast Texas, Mexico reached out to Texas. Trump, meanwhile, bullied Mexico on Twitter to pay for his promised border wall. On Monday, he repeated his threat the the U.S. would at some point kill NAFTA.

[...]

"Mexico's desire to be humane at a time of such great need contrasts the character and the churlishness coming out of Washington, D.C., and NAFTA," said Tony Garza, a prominent Republican and former U.S. ambassador and now legal counsel with White & Case in Mexico City.

[...]

The recently signed SB4 is scheduled to go into effect Friday, barring its possible overturning this week by a federal judge. SB4 effectively outlaws sanctuary cities — places where local law enforcement limits or refuses cooperation with federal immigration agents — and gives police the right to ask the immigration status of people they detain. Mexico's vast immigrant population would be affected.

And if they use Harvey as an excuse to entrap Mexicans displaced or stranded by the floods, there is going to be Hell to pay.

Texas's biggest cities — Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin — and other local entities have filed a lawsuit against SB4, and activists remain hopeful that U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia will rule the law unconstitutional this week in response.

[...]

Texas leads a group of 10 states pressuring the Trump administration to end DACA, and in recent days Trump has signaled he may do so.

Shame on Texas.  And shame on Trump.

"Yes, we know [...] , but our decision, our willingness to help Texas isn't based on politics," Sada said. "This is a spontaneous reaction to a neighbor in need, and we, based on our own experiences with natural disasters, know recovery periods can take months, years. So we're here with one message: Texas, Mexico is ready to help."

Just like they always do.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

But Before He Goes

The Justice Department escalated its promised crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities Tuesday, saying it will no longer give cities coveted grant money unless they give federal immigration authorities access to jails and provide advance notice when someone in the country illegally is about to be released.

  TPM

Forget what you read on that Statue of Liberty. This is the new America.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

9th Circuit's Sanctuary City Decision Against Trump

A US judge has blocked President Donald Trump's executive order that sought to withhold federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities, dealing another legal blow to the administration's efforts to toughen immigration enforcement.

US District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco issued the preliminary injunction in two lawsuits on Tuesday - one brought by the city of San Francisco, the other by Santa Clara County - saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.

[...]

Judge Orrick said Trump cannot set new conditions for the federal grants at stake. And even if he could, the conditions would have to be clearly related to the funds at issue and not coercive, the judge said.

"Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the president disapproves," the judge said.

  al Jazeera

So Much Winning, You Won't Be Able to Stand It

via GIPHY

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Sanctuary City ruling.

California vs. Deportations

Approximately 70 percent of all deportations nationwide are the result of local law enforcement’s participation in federal immigration enforcement activities. This is where Trump’s deportation dragnet lies — in the arrests, hand-offs, and information-sharing between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents. The administration needs local law enforcement as its “force multipliers.” Without their assistance, the Trump administration cannot dramatically increase deportations.

[...]

Just this past week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would withhold federal funding to agencies that do not cooperate with ICE’s detainers, even though courts have held that compliance with ICE detainers violates the Constitution. And, in a failed effort to spark fear and outrage, the administration released information about numbers of ICE detainer requests declined by local police, but the information was so misleading and erroneous it earned the ire of even California’s most ICE-friendly sheriff.

[...]

President Trump has already unleashed his immigration agents to troll areas of public life previously considered off-limits for immigration enforcement, including areas around schools, hospitals, and places of worship. Survivors of violent and physical assault are dropping their cases for fear that testifying in court will expose them to deportation. Educators report that school attendance is dropping, and health clinics report that immigrants are removing themselves from California health-care programs.

[...]

The California Values Act will establish statewide standards to ensure that state and local resources are not used to deport thousands of Californians.

[...]

The California Values Act would ensure that California residents have equal access to vital public services, including police, hospitals, schools, and courthouses, regardless of national origin and immigration status.

  ACLU

The bill passed the Senate in a 27-12 vote along party lines with Democrats in support and Republicans in opposition.

SB 54 heads to the California State Assembly, where Democrats hold a super majority. If it passes there, the bill would go to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.

  CNN

For Californians, the ACLU website has a form you can submit to urge your assembly member to vote yes on the bill.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The New Fascists at Work

Donald Trump's government published for the first time Monday a list highlighting the nationalities of immigrants who were charged or convicted of crimes but were released by local authorities.

The report puts pressure on so-called sanctuary cities, highlighting jurisdictions that release immigrants who might be subject to deportation instead of transferring them into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The report, called the " Weekly and Declined Detainer Outcome Report," lists 206 declined “detainers,” or immigrants who were marked by ICE for possible deportation but who were released by law enforcement between January 28, 2017, and February 3, 2017. That’s out of a total 3,083 detainers issued throughout the country during that same period.

[...]

Nearly 70 percent of the immigrants on the list are from Mexico. More than 95 percent are from Latin American countries.

[...]

Most detainers have only been charged with a crime, not convicted: of the 206 on the list, 116 are pending charges.

  Univision

So these people might not even be guilty of any crime.

Among common criminal charges are domestic violence, driving under the influence of alcohol, assault, robbery and sexual assault. There are also immigrants on the list charged with drug possession, resisting an officer and prostitution.

Something, as we all know, only Latinos do.

Travis County, Texas, home of the city of Austin, accounted for 142 (nearly 70 percent) of those charged with crimes and released.

On Monday, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott called the report “deeply disturbing” and highlighted the “urgent need for a statewide sanctuary city ban in Texas.”

Last month, Abbott pulled state funding for Travis County programs after Sheriff Sally Hernandez, a Democrat, said that she would only honor detainer requests from ICE agents on a limited basis.

[...]

“Texas will act to put an end to sanctuary policies that put the lives of our citizens at risk,” Abbott wrote in a statement Monday.

And Texas will no longer be plagued by DUIs, assaults, robberies, prostitution and drugs.  Won't that be wonderful?

Making America Great Again!