I am suspecting the lawyer will wake up Monday morning, be at a ‘bring your toothbrush’ to court moment (Aka, they might throw me in jail on content and not let me leave.) on Monday when he shows up without the detainee, and will instead be quitting his job this weekend.

Ah, that decision just got easier for him. That lawyer, whose name is Erez Reuveni and was the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, just got placed on leave by the DOJ. So he will not be walking into court on Monday. And hence will not be the person sanctioned.

For "failure to zealously advocate", which I presume must mean 'Failure to make the Trump Administration's actions legal somehow'.

And his supervisor, August Flentje, a Deputy Director, was placed on leave for "failure to supervise a subordinate".

I am not sure who still exists in the Office of Immigration Litigation at the DOJ and who is going to show up in court Monday. What I am 100% sure of is the judge will give absolutely no leeway or delay because the government has decided to fire their lawyer.

We are getting near the point of mass resignations of lawyers at the DOJ, simply because this situation is untenable: Their clients keep doing illegal unjustifiable things and they have to walk into court and explain that to the judge, somehow. And failing to get the judge to go along with the administration's illegal action results in them being punished by the administration.

And here we go with the constitutional crisis: A Federal judge Paula Xinis has ordered the Trump administration to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador _right now_. To have him back in the US by _Monday_.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/04/el-salvador-deportation-ruling-trump-administration-00272872

In fairly usual move by the government and is seen more often in 'criminal defense attorney has to make excuses for his client', the lawyer for the DOJ was begging to get another 24 hours so he could convince _his client_ to do what the court asked without issuing the order.

Shortly before the judge ruled, the visibly frustrated attorney pleaded with Xinis for 24 hours to try to persuade U.S. officials to try to seek Abrego Garcia’s return without intervention by the court.

Which is basically a straight up admission of 'My client is not going to follow your orders and things are about to get really bad for us, but my client is a complete moron and doesn't understand that'.

Which they are. The government is operated by idiots who do not understand that asserting that they cannot get get people back from El Salvador puts them in violation of all sorts of laws and will make the courts incredibly reluctant to allow them _ever_ put _anyone_ there or, indeed, do anything at _all_ WRT immigration.

Also, interesting fact: The Attorney General has been signing these legal papers, a thing which the AG would not normally do, which makes _her_ legally liable and avoids any possible claim of irregularity if she gets hauled into court to explain the government's position. It seems very strange for her to volunteer to do this, but not when you realize that lawyers have been probably been very reluctant to sign their names onto the Trump administration's legal theories, and having Bondi also sign means they cannot be thrown under the bus...and also means they can resign from the case and just throw her under her own bus. I am suspecting the lawyer will wake up Monday morning, be at a 'bring your toothbrush' to court moment (Aka, they might throw me in jail on content and not let me leave.) on Monday when he shows up without the detainee, and will instead be quitting his job this weekend.

We do not have a lot of chaos in this. We have court system that functions, and we have whatever Trump is doing.

The funniest thing Venezuela could do at this point would be to treat it like a declared war and sue for peace in the UN and promise to unilaterally cease all aggression and return all territory. Plead for 'status quo ante bellum', aka, 'returning the situation that existed before a war'. Aka, 'Sorry, and let us pretend our invasion never happen'

Which normally is how you lose a of aggression war and try to keep the same government, but in this case, as Venezuela has neither committed no aggression and seized no territory, would mean nothing at all.

BTW, if these actually are being detained because we're at war with their 'country', which is apparently Venezuela (?), that both Venezuela and the US are signatories to the Geneva Convention, and this is literally the exact sort of humiliation propaganda photograph you are not allowed to do with prisoners of war.

A quick search to see see if anyone else noticed this...yup:

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/kristi-noems-el-salvador-prison-photo-op-might-have-violated-the-geneva-convention/

Anyone remember how Iran, who had captured US sailors who had wandered into their waters, showed pictures that they were being humanely treated? And the right tried to pretend that was a violation of Geneva, and everyone pointed out 'Showing capture soldiers being feed and treated well' might be propaganda, but it's the exactly what Geneva wants, 'prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated and protected against acts of violence, intimidation, insults, and public curiosity'. You're _allowed_ to produce propaganda bragging how well you treat your prisoners. (As long as you don't force them to participate. You can ask for volunteers to do that, but you cannot punish them if they do not, or for what they say in that propaganda. Although, obviously, you probably won't distribute it if they don't say good things.)

Well, conservatives, in case you're wondering, this. This is what you are not allowed to do. On top of the obvious intended humiliation, this is fairly clearly a photo op that all these prisoners were forced to take part in, and even forced to partially disrobe for. And it's intended to show people how _badly_ they are being treated.

And that's just the photo part. Obviously, mistreatment itself is a worse crime. Also, their government (Venezuela?) need to be notified, and captured POWs must be allowed, within the week, to write home.

Imagine if we lived in a country where posting a picture which looks like it came straight out of a concentration camp, full of people who have not been charged with a crime that we shipped to another country, makes you look good.

It's 8 for them to remove them just because one person decides, if it's 6 or 7 they have consult a supervisor.

It is worth pointing out that this basically means they are counting everyone who lives with a claimed member of TDA as themselves a claimed member of TDA, because they'd hit all 6 points of 'Association' and probably have at least Symbolism (b) in that there are certainly social media posts that include pictures of people they live.

Same logic with family members: Documentations and Communications (a) is worth 6 and is literally just phone calls. Add a picture in there, there's 8. Your brother, who you don't associate with, is living in another state, is in a gang you have nothing to do with, and he posted a picture to his social media, and the called you to bail him out and you refused? Tada, eight points, you're a gang member.

And that's assuming that their idea of what gang symbols or gang tattoos are make sense. Which they don't. They have managed to college at least three people for gang tattoos who are gay tattoo artists or makeup artists. Tren de Aragua, for the record, is not weirdly progressive gang that is fine with gay gang members.

At least one of them had entered the US to _attended a prearranged asylum hearing_. He petitioned for asylum, at the border, like he was supposed to, did the proper paperwork, the US let him in, he's working through the system, like he's supposed to, and Trump grabbed him off the street and shipped him overseas.

Meanwhile, and it's worth point this out: The guy that Trump Administration is 'oops we accidentally sold this guy to El Salvador despite having a judge's order' was randomly pointed at back in 2019 by other people being investigated by immigration as a member, INS arrested him, an immigration judge (Remember those?) not only said he was not a member but determined that he _could not_ be deported because he was at risk of being murdered by gangs, and he needed to stay in the US until a proper refugee status could be worked out.

He almost certainly was deported because he had 'credibly statements identifying him as a member' (As in, a judge, said they were nonsense) and he was 'indicted for being a member' (An indictment for a crime later he was _found innocent of_ by a judge.)

We HAVE an immigration court in this country. They are completely ignoring it because they have decided to pretend a law says something different.

Well, no. They're completely ignoring it because they are, and this cannot be emphasized enough, actual fascists who are deliberately attempting to torture people because it makes them look strong to their fascism followers. They are starting with randomly accusations of some members of this outgroup (brown immigrants) being gang members, as sort of a test, and they're offshoring their torture to another country. Baby steps. They will move on.

That is, literally, what is happen in this country right now, and people need to understand that.

It's also worth explaining that about 75% of this system was _already in place_, and INS has always been extremely fascistic. This is something we built, over the last two decades, to operate mostly like this, and it has absolutely no problem shedding the tiniest vestige of due process and leap whole-heartedly in this.