Comment by zaptheimpaler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zaptheimpaler | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

lol judges have ruled 100s or 1000s of ICE detentions in various states illegal by now. None of that has stopped ICE from doing what it's doing. This kind of optimism in the law seems naive today because there is no mechanism to actually enforce it. All federal agents have very substantial legal & civil immunity, heads of departments have immunity as well. The head of the legal system is Pam Bondi who isn't even prosecuting child rapists, or Donald Trump who is one.

Even after Kristi Noem ruined countless lives and was responsible for deaths of innocent people, the only consequence she faced is being demoted to some made up job where she still gets paid to do nothing - no fine, no jail, not even being out of work, no accountability, no justice. None of the ICE agents involved have faced any consequences besides a leave either, we don't even know most of their names. The justice system is not working.

People who don't follow the news like most of the tech community are living in some dreamland of a system or treating it as a purely mental battle of optimism/pessimism vs. actually seeing what is happening.

> judges have ruled 100s or 1000s of ICE detentions in various states illegal by now. None of that has stopped ICE from doing what it's doing.

This is a weird one because ICE has lost so many habeas cases, mostly by dropping them, only for the 8th circuit court of appeals (which covers Minnesota) to overturn that the other day:

https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/26/03/253248P.pdf

There was similar precedent in the 5th circuit (Texas) previously, too, but that was not binding on Minnesota:

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26884355/ca5detention...

So this is pretty weird now, legally, since a ton of lower courts have assumed things didn't work this way and the appeals courts are now saying they're wrong.

This is a case where a person who actually was illegally present is denied release on bond and the court sided with ICE. It does not address illegal detentions or deportations without hearings. There are countless other cases where people are detained despite providing evidence of legal status, of inhumane conditions in detention centers, of ICE directly ignoring court orders, of ICE agents on tape lying about people ramming their car and assaulting, detaining or killing them, of ICE releasing detainees without any of their possessions or IDs on the side of the road in freezing weather, and more.

> It does not address illegal detentions or deportations without hearings.

It certainly doesn't address all of ICE's legal issues, no, but it does say they don't need to give this guy a bond hearing:

> Accordingly, we find that the district court erred in holding that the Government could not detain Avila without bond under § 1225(b)(2)(A) and in granting habeas relief on that basis.

My understanding from talking to a criminal defense attorney who practices in MN about this is that this seems to give ICE broad powers to hold people without bond which many, many lower courts had rejected not wanting ICE to have such a broad power for all the reasons you mentioned.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com