Judge likens Trump administration to ‘authoritarian regimes’

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has prevented the Trump administration from immediately deporting immigrants who had previously been allowed entry into the U.S. – severely criticizing the federal government over its deportation strategies.

Through several policy directives, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sought to effectively end “parole” – a certain type of release – for immigrants and hasten their deportation or removal.

In March, a group of immigrant-rights organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over these policies, requesting an injunction. By June, the plaintiffs had adjusted their legal approach by asking the court to pause the agency’s deportation actions.

Now, in an 84-page memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb, appointed by Joe Biden, has approved the stay, halting the implementation of these three policy directives.

“This Court will GRANT the requested stay,” the opinion states. “The challenged agency actions exceed DHS”s statutory authority and are arbitrary and capricious. And Plaintiffs’ members and others in their position face imminent, irreparable injury from those actions that outweighs any harm to the Government or the public from pressing pause. Accordingly, the challenged agency actions will be stayed, until the conclusion of this litigation, as to all noncitizens who have been, at any point in time, paroled into the United States at a port of entry.”

The government argued the plaintiffs had improperly challenged the policy directives by using the wrong statute to push for an effective injunction and because the actions had already gone into effect.

Cobb rejected those claims.

The court explained that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the federal statute governing the behavior of departments and agencies, expressly authorizes courts to issue such stays against unlawful agency actions. Further, the court said, various prior court decisions have found that stays under the APA are not “equivalent to injunctions.” As for the timing of the challenge, the judge noted the text of the APA itself expressly allows courts to “preserve status or rights pending conclusion of the review proceedings.”

Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice further alleged the plaintiffs conceded that a separate suite of unchallenged regulations – rules issued by agency bureaucrats without congressional input – “provide a legal basis for DHS to apply expedited removal to paroled.”

Here, Cobb was thoroughly unconvinced.

“Narrowly, this is a straightforward case of statutory interpretation and agency rationality,” the opinion reads. “Neither the applicable statutes nor principles of reasoned decision-making authorizes the challenged agency actions.”

The judge then described the dispute in terms of real world impact:

More broadly, this case presents a question of fair play. Plaintiffs’ members, and hundreds of thousands of others like them, fled oppressive regimes and perilous conditions in their home countries. They arrived for inspection at the United States border pursuant to procedures created and advocated by the U.S. Government. They were paroled into this country under those procedures and given the chance to prove their claims for asylum or other relief authorized by our laws. In a world of bad options, they played by the rules. Now, the Government has not only closed off those pathways for new arrivals but changed the game for parolees already here, restricting their ability to seek immigration relief and subjecting them to summary removal despite statutory law prohibiting the Executive Branch from doing so.

“Plaintiffs’ declarations are replete with uncontested evidence that their members and other parolees have (a) been detained pursuant to explicit or apparent expedited removal proceedings, when they were previously undergoing [removal] proceedings without being detained, (b) often been detained in far-flung locations away from their families and attorneys, (c) faced poor conditions in detention more commonly associated with expedited removal facilities than others, and (d) suffered mental and physical health challenges as a result of their detention,” the court explains – crediting the plaintiffs’ narratives.

To hear Cobb tell it, the combined weight of the factual allegations – which she found to be largely uncontested – and the legal landscape – which she found to be “clearly” in the plaintiffs’ favor – suggest the immigration agencies’ actions “are both ultra vires and arbitrary and capricious.” Or, in other words, beyond the agencies’ power and in violation of a specific section of the APA.

The judge frames the issue before the court as a long question.

“This case’s underlying question, then, asks whether parolees who escaped oppression will have the chance to plead their case within a system of rules,” the opinion goes on. “Or, alternatively, will they be summarily removed from a country that—as they are swept up at checkpoints and outside courtrooms, often by plainclothes officers without explanation or charges—may look to them more and more like the countries from which they tried to escape?”

Cobb suggests the answer in the case is not entirely unlike obvious – at least for now.