The Trump administration is deliberately starting a legal fight over family detention

[babylonsister]

The Trump administration is deliberately starting a legal fight over family detention
The law says the government can’t detain migrant families for more than 20 days. But Trump’s team is trying to strong-arm a federal judge into changing that.
By Dara [e-mail] Jun 20, 2018, 8:44pm EDT


The Trump administration understands full well that President Trump’s executive order on family separation is inevitably headed for a court battle.

That appears to be why it made the move.

On a press call Wednesday, Gene Hamilton, a senior official at the Department of Justice, acknowledged that as it stands right now, the Department of Homeland Security “cannot detain children who came with their parents for more than 20 days.” But Trump has signed an executive order that opens the door to doing just that.

The order would allow the DHS to keep families together in immigration detention, rather than splitting them apart when parents are prosecuted for illegal entry, for as long as it takes to resolve the case — with no acknowledgment of the 20-day limit.

Hamilton says it’s up to the other two branches of government to resolve the conflict. Either Dolly Gee, the federal judge overseeing the Flores settlement, the court decision that led to the 20-day rule, will accede to the DOJ’s demand to change the rules to allow them to detain children with their parents for as long as necessary. Or Congress will pass a law that overrides the Flores settlement entirely.

If either of those things happen, the Trump administration will actually get the legal authority to do what Trump’s executive order just demanded.

If neither of them happen ... well, Hamilton didn’t appear to consider that an option.

more...

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17485866/trump-executive-order-immigration-families-jail

[mvd]

1. Exactly

Everything he does has some awful catch. Indefinite detention of families raises a whole new set of problems. He is just a very bad person.

[Generic Brad]

2. The party of Family Devalues

They don't give a shit about families other than their own.

[Solly Mack]

3. They'll need bigger facilities - meaning money made off human suffering.

GTMO South West