BALTIMORE (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia walked away after a scheduled appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office on Friday to the cheers of a crowd assembled outside. A federal judge had ordered that immigration officials could not detain him.
Abrego Garcia appeared for the appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, some 14 hours after he was released from detention on a judge’s orders. His lawyers had asked the judge to block authorities from detaining him again and he walked out of the building surrounded by cheering supporters after the appearance, then left without commenting.
This headline just struck me as wild.
It’s not enough to simply release Garcia, since Donald decided to make him the whipping boy for his entire illegal Gestapo ethnic cleansing immigration policies, but now judges have to order ICE to leave him the fuck alone.
Still, checks and balances working slowly is better than checks and balances not working at all. (And thanks for the zero checks and balances from congress, Jeffries and Schumer.)
Definitely wild. It is a slight glimmer of hope that the benefit of the doubt is no longer being afforded the administration by the courts. Why they ever did this time around is beyond me, but at least they’re starting to recognize these as extraordinary times.
And they could have just avoided all these losses by just not sending this particular guy to that particular country like the pre-existing order said. Or to admit the mistake and bring him back when it was found out. Their inability to just say “we made a mistake and are fixing it” made this a much bigger problem.
That’s the Roy Cohn strategy for you.