Fifth Circuit Has New Legal Idea, It Is That Any Non-Citizen Can Be Locked Up Forever

[erronis]

https://www.wonkette.com/p/fifth-circuit-has-new-legal-idea
Gary Legum

Been in America for 30 years? That's nice, enjoy the detention camp.

Has anyone in America ever loved anything as much as today's wingnuts love locking immigrants up in detention camps? And we ask this knowing full well that Americans love lots of terrible things. Guns. Racism. TV shows created by Dick Wolf.

The latest step on the nation's road to ignoring whatever lessons were available to us after the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II came about on Friday night. That was when a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals released a ruling stating that everyone had been interpreting a particular aspect of federal immigration law incorrectly since 1996. And when we say everyone, we mean five presidents (including Donald Trump in his first term), immigration attorneys, the entire immigration apparatus of the federal government, and the vast, vast number of federal judges who have looked at the issue over the last year. Including Trump appointees!

But this new interpretation gives the Trump administration something it desperately wants: the legal seal of approval to lock up every immigrant its stormtroopers can get their hands on, no matter their age, health, legal status, or length of time they have been in this country. God, the sex Stephen and Katie Miller probably had after hearing this news must have been mind-blowing.

. . .

The clearest explanation we have found for this came from Chris Geidner at his excellent Law Dork newsletter. The issue can be found in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). Under this law, people who are present in America without ever having been legally admitted "are subject to a section of law that allows release and requires bond hearings (absent exceptions in the law) if the government seeks to deport them." Easy enough to understand.

Now, under a different section of the IIRIRA, anyone classified as an "arriving alien" -- say, someone who shows up at the Mexican border and asks for asylum -- gets "mandatory detention." But the Trump team has come up with a novel interpretation: This second section of the law should also apply to people in that first group. All of a sudden, literally millions of people who have gone decades building their lives while their deportation cases work their way through the system are being told they should have been locked up instead. And as we have seen from actions in Minneapolis and a bunch of other places, immigration authorities under Trump are doing their darndest to make that happen.

. . .

[TBF]

1. I mean what do you expect from Edith Jones?

If we had a Supreme Court that could overrule her nonsense it would be great.

[bluestarone]

2. YES it does. I see THIS

Supreme court feeling the same way, sad to think.

[dalton99a]

3. "They are a great source of cheap to free labor"

[dalton99a]

4. NEXT: Trump orders immigrant detainees in ICE work camps to pay for food and lodging

[erronis]

7. Don't give miller any new ideas. His forehead is already about to explode.

[dutch777]

5. Besides the moral stupidity of this, how the world views us, etc., there is also a huge $$$ cost.

Assuming we get rid of true criminals (as in thieves, murderers, rapists...anyone like Trump) and we look at the rest of the immigrant population for what they are....raw human potential-- just like the millions that have come before all the way back to the 1600s. You know, like the ones that made a country here. What would the cost/benefit analysis show if instead of terrorizing half the country with masked storm troopers and locking people up all over the place, we instead worked on getting immigrants legally registered and naturalized and working? It is already becoming apparent in many industries (construction, agriculture, meat packing, hospitality) that when the immigrants fall out of the workforce for whatever reason, there is no one readily willing to replace them. We are not exactly in boom times, but if we were it seems doubtful we have the numbers in the labor force to support major economic expansion. I don't know how you would get after the numbers to prove this, but I suspect if you looked out 10 years, embracing and investing in immigrants would have a significant net positive effect on the economy. And who knows maybe you actually invest better in our education system and actually improve things across the board.

[erronis]

8. Great points, but that's not their point. For trump/et/al, the economy be damned (and it is)

[dutch777]

9. Of course, they are throwing red meat to their base but I suspect we can hang the economy issues on the GOP

come the midterms. And when you look at hit to farmers and a lot of the others impacted on labor force issues it lands significantly in red states putting them in play for a move to Dem legislators. Fingers crossed!

[B.See]

6. What. The notoriously far reich KKangaroo Kourt of the 5th?

Those fascist lunatics? What a surprise!

Mother Jones caught on a little more than a year ago in this QUITE prophetic piece. Better late than never.

How Much More Radical Could the Supreme Court Become? Look to the Fifth Circuit.- MotherJones

[DarthDem]

10. What a heinous ruling

The source is no surprise.

[yellow dahlia]

11. This is confusing, convoluted, confounding...and cruel.

[sakabatou]

13. Cruelty is the point

[yellow dahlia]

15. Absolutely!

[sakabatou]

12. We learned nothing when it came to the horrors of WW2

[ananda]

14. Back to Indian Reservations also, I would presume.

Lock them up and either let them live in horrible
conditions, perhaps as slaves... or let them die.

You know, like the good old days.