https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8jw9PFc/
Monday, April 28, 2025
Friday, April 25, 2025
A 2-year-old U.S. citizen was deported ‘with no meaningful process,’ a judge suspects.
A federal judge in Louisiana expressed concern on Friday that the Trump administration had deported a 2-year-old U.S. citizen to Honduras "with no meaningful process" and against the wishes of her father.
In a brief order issued from Federal District Court in the Western District of Louisiana, Judge Terry A. Doughty questioned why the administration had sent the child — known in court papers only as V.M.L. — to Honduras with her mother even though her father had sought in an emergency petition on Thursday to stop the girl from being sent abroad.
"The government contends that this is all OK because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her," wrote Judge Doughty, a conservative Trump appointee. "But the court doesn't know that."
Asserting that "it is illegal and unconstitutional to deport" a U.S. citizen, Judge Doughty set a hearing for May 16 to explore his "strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
The case of V.M.L., which was reported earlier by Politico, is the latest challenge to the legality of several aspects of President Trump's aggressive deportation efforts.
The administration has already been blocked by six federal judges in courts across the country from removing Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to El Salvador under a rarely invoked wartime statute. It has also created an uproar by wrongfully deporting a Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador and so far refusing to work to bring him back.
According to court papers, the 2-year-old girl had accompanied her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, and her older sister, Valeria, to an immigration appointment in New Orleans on Tuesday when they were taken into custody by officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ms. Lopez Villela was scheduled for an expedited removal from the country on Friday. And in a filing to Judge Doughty, lawyers for the Justice Department claimed that she "made known to ICE officials that she wanted to retain custody of V.M.L. and for V.M.L. to go" with her to Honduras.
But in a petition filed by the child's custodian, Trish Mack, on Thursday, her father claimed that when he spoke briefly with Ms. Lopez Villela, he could hear her and the children crying. The father reminded her, the petition said, that "their daughter was a U.S. citizen and could not be deported."
The father, who was not identified by name in the petition, tried to give Ms. Lopez Villela the phone number for a lawyer, but he claims that officials cut short the call.
The detention of V.M.L. "is without any basis in law and violates her fundamental due process rights," the petition said. "She seeks this court's urgent action and asks the court to order her immediate release to her custodian Trish Mack, who is ready and waiting to take her home."
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Tuesday, April 22, 2025
U.S. Constitution - Fourteenth Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
Fourteenth Amendment
Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/ | |
U.S. Constitution - Ninth Amendment
Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-9/ | |
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Justice Dept. suspends lawyer who acknowledged deportation was a mistake
Story by Perry Stein, Katie Mettler
The Justice Department suspended a veteran lawyer after he said in court that officials mistakenly deported a man to prison in his home country of El Salvador and conceded that he did not know the legal basis for the expulsion.
Erez Reuveni had worked at the Justice Department for nearly 15 years, most recently as the acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation. A Justice Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter, said he was put on indefinite leave.
In response to questions about Reuveni, Attorney General Pam Bondi said: "At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences."
Reuveni appeared in federal court in Maryland on Friday after the government's extraordinary admission that it should not have deported Kilmar Abrego García on March 15 as part of a surprise airlift of purported gang members to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador.
Reuveni acknowledged the mistake in court Friday and told a judge that he did not know what authority the U.S. used to deport Abrego García. Six years ago, an immigration judge found that Abrego García had testified credibly that he could be harmed or killed by gang members in El Salvador and should not be removed.
"My answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating," Reuveni told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in federal court in Maryland. "And I'm frustrated that I don't have answers to a lot of these questions."
Reuveni is the latest career staffer to be fired or removed from their position for being viewed as disloyal or ill equipped to carry out President Donald Trump's agenda. The New York Times first reported on his removal.
Typically, career staffers at the Justice Department are tasked with handling cases that they may disagree with, but they are expected to follow legal ethics and the professional standards set out by the American Bar Association.
On her first day as attorney general, Bondi issued an agencywide directive that demanded "zealous advocacy" of Trump's agenda from the department's more than 10,000 lawyers.
Xinis on Friday ordered the Trump administration to arrange the return of Abrego García, who is married to a U.S. citizen, by no later than 11:59 p.m. Monday.
The Trump administration immediately appealed that ruling. The Justice Department said in a filing Saturday — which Reuveni did not sign — that the judge's order was "indefensible" and that the United States does not have "control over Abrego García."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said the government has no power to return Abrego García because he is in the custody of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
"We suggest the Judge contact President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador," Leavitt said in an email.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers acknowledged in court records several days ago that they were aware of internal forms forbidding them from sending Abrego García to El Salvador and called his removal an "oversight."
Reuveni was one of three attorneys who signed the court filing that said Abrego García was removed because of an "administrative error." The lead attorney on the filing — Yaakov Roth, the acting assistant attorney general — was recently tapped by the Trump administration to serve in the department.
Rueveni was recently promoted to acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation, known as OIL. In announcing the promotion to staff, a Justice Department leader praised Reuveni's work as a "top-notched litigator who has taken on some of OIL's most challenging cases" over the past 15 years, according to a copy of the message shared with the Washington Post.
In court on Friday, Reuveni appeared frustrated with being put in the position to argue that the United States had no authority to try to secure Abrego García's return from El Salvador.
At the end of the hearing, Reuveni made a plea, asking the judge to give the administration a few days to secure Agrego García's return without court interference. He told the judge that had been his recommendation to government officials, whom he referred to as his clients.
"Good clients listen to their lawyers," Xinis said.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
I gotta do a Better Job with my Example Events
When I create a ConferenceParties.com site for a conference, like RSA or Google Cloud Next, or AWS Summits, I add an example banner and example party listing. This is to help marketing folks understand they could have a Banner Ad on the site.
While searching for events to add to my RSA Parties site I found this listed:
This is my Example banner and listing
I guess I GOTTA make this more obvious. 😅
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