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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   32275 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/17/u-s-born-man-held-for-ice-under-floridas-new-anti-immigration-law/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-born-citizen-detained-ice-immigration-florida-rcna201800

A Florida State Trooper claimed a natural born citizen admitted to entering the country illegally. Thankfully, his family was able to prove his citizenship to a state judge. Unfortunately, ICE requested Florida keep him in custody, for an as-yet not-public reason, and Florida has done so, despite the citizen not being charged with any state crime, other than an unenforceable statute against illegal immigrants entering Florida, of which he was already proven innocent, even if it were enforceable. He was later released, thankfully.

Any data on the rate of these sorts of things happening, in the past? Should or shouldn't this be worrying and why?

Press is working overtime to turn the public against deportations. It’s giving “kids in cages” narrative-crafting energy to me, it’s amazing how quickly people forget this stuff

This seems like a non-story because Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was released the same day as his court hearing.

Here's an article that includes timelines: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-born-american-citizen-ice-hold-florida-released-rcna201854

It looks like Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was arrested on Wednesday (possibly Thursday, very early AM). He saw a judge on Thursday afternoon. He was held for a few hours after the hearing because of an ICE request, before being released on Thursday evening.

I don't want to say that an incorrect arrest is ever good; but if the cops were acting in good faith, then nothing here seems to shock the conscience. It feels like the equivalent of the police seeing someone breaking into a car at 3AM, getting an explanation of "But officer! That's my car! I just misplaced my keys!" and then releasing the person the next day when it's proven that they do - in fact - own the car.

Even the "Immigrations and Customs Enforcement" hold (which was apparently a few hours) doesn't seem that stunning. Federal law requires everyone - citizens included - to cross the border at an authorized checkpoints. So, if the police believed that Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez crossed the border illegally then ICE could want to talk to him about not complying with customs rules, even if he's a citizen.

ICE likely requested Florida keep him in custody because Florida told them "Hey, we got a guy here who doesn't speak English, who we found in a car with a guy driving with no license". At least by Federal law, the judge was wrong when she said she could do nothing; non-commandeering means an ICE detainer is a request, one which would be overruled by the order of a judge.

Under anti-comandeering, the state has no legal obligation to the federal government to honor the detainer. But a state may have its own laws governing how it wants to cooperate with ICE. Delving into google gives this result: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0900-0999/0908/Sections/0908.105.html

Upon determining that the immigration detainer is in accordance with s. 908.102(2), comply with the requests made in the immigration detainer.

For purposes of this subsection, an immigration detainer is deemed facially sufficient if: (a) The federal immigration agency’s official form is complete and indicates on its face that the federal immigration official has probable cause to believe that the person to be detained is a removable alien under federal immigration law; or

So it appears that under Florida statute, state officials are required to honor all valid ICE detainers, meaning that the judge has no legal power to release the person unless he has an argument that the statute or his detention are actually unconstitutional.

908.105(1) and (2) bind law enforcement, not the Florida judiciary. 908.104(2) would bind the judge with respect to "with respect to information regarding a person’s immigration status", except that the information the judge had is "this person is a US citizen". So as far as I can tell, a judge knowing a person is a US citizen can order his release, but that does put law enforcement in a double-bind (follow the statute or follow the judge's order).

The judge cannot (or at least isn’t supposed to) order anyone to disobey the law. Judges are supposed to say what the law is. So if the judge were to find that 908.105 is unconstitutional when applied to a U.S. citizen, or that the legislature didn’t intend section 908.105 to apply to U.S. citizens, the judge could order the U.S. citizen to be released.

One of the problems with judges is that there is no accountability for legislating from the bench unless extremists are in power. Under moderates or even principled radicals, judges can be impeached for personal misconduct, but not for bad rulings that run contrary to the basic desires of most people. This inevitably drives radicalization.

For several decades, in both North America and Europe, judges have ruled on immigration cases in ways that fundamentally violate the popular will, and have unjustifiably prevented the deportation of people that most citizens did not and do not want to share their countries with. Unlike politicians, the people cannot really even try to remove judges, because while some are technically political appointees, the ‘profession’ has largely wrangled the ability to regulate itself away from legislatures in both spirit and practice.

The historical Anglo-Saxon judicial tradition upon which the Common Law is based always afforded judges the right, and indeed in many cases implicitly obligated them, to respect the people’s will. If a crowd of people clamor outside the courthouse for a man’s innocence or guilt, judges were and should be swayed by it. For millennia, and to the great detriment of the Jewish people, Christians blamed the Jews (the civilians) and not Pilate, who ultimately sentenced Christ, for his execution. Less (although sometimes not much less) controversially, there are countless cases in the English legal tradition in which judges heeded the popular call for a specific kind of justice.

I don’t want to live in an unaccountable dictatorship, in the Chinese legal system in which lawyers are either set dressing, fixers or enemies of the state or powerful officials with a very short career and freedom expectancy. But that is inevitable in the West unless judges use their verbal ability to sense the way the wind is blowing on immigration and start giving the people what they have so often and so politely requested.

The historical Anglo-Saxon judicial tradition upon which the Common Law is based always afforded judges the right, and indeed in many cases implicitly obligated them, to respect the people’s will.

They are required to respect the people's will as enacted by the legislature, not the people's will as reported in a pew opinion poll or an online forum.

For several decades, in both North America and Europe, judges have ruled on immigration cases in ways that fundamentally violate the popular will, and have unjustifiably prevented the deportation of people that most citizens did not and do not want to share their countries with. Unlike politicians, the people cannot really even try to remove judges, because while some are technically political appointees, the ‘profession’ has largely wrangled the ability to regulate itself away from legislatures in both spirit and practice.

Can you be more specific? In the USA, immigration courts handling individual cases are "administrative courts," within the Executive, so the judges can be changed with each administration. "Article III" Senate-confirmed, appointed-for-life judges rule on applicable statutory and constitutional questions.

The problem is not with these immigration “judges”, but with actual Article III judges like Boasberg or Xinis, who override the determinations of Article II examiners at will, making it effectively impossible to enforce law at scale. If every illegal gets Article III judiciary proceedings before finally getting removed, we will never be able to actually enforce the law. Imagine if military had to get a court decision before being able to kill an invading soldier.

like Boasberg or Xinis, who override the determinations of Article II examiners at will, making it effectively impossible to enforce law at scale

What in the world are you talking about? In the Garcia case (that's in front of Xinis), it was the Article II examiner (in 2019, under Trump!) that signed the order withholding removal.

I really don't comprehend how you character this as overriding that determination. If anything, Boasberg is doing the polar opposite -- enforcing it.

The problem is not with the withholding order. The problem is that apparently everyone expects infinite process before you’re actually able to execute any removal.

In the Garcia case, the government made a mistake by not complying with that withholding offer (I’ll assume that it was indeed a mistake, and not deliberate flouting of the order, because otherwise the below argument doesn’t apply). Liberals, moderates, and centrists seem to believe that the outcome at hand means that the Garcia’s right to due process was not met, and district and some appellate judges seem to believe that too. There is an implication here that if Garcia’s due process rights were met, he would not have been deported to El Salvador. This is not so. There is no amount of due process that will prevent government from ever making mistakes of this sort, and excessive efforts of judiciary and activists using the judiciary to prevent mistakes meaningfully detract from the Executive’s ability to execute its core function.

The simple fact is that there is absolutely no existing process that could have prevented this mistake. Garcia had final, confirmed on appeal order to be removed. He had no further ability to appeal it. If the government removed him to a different country, that would have been it. This is how the process works, not just in immigration, but in every case.

For example, imagine you’re a tenant who stopped paying rent. Landlord goes through legal process to get you evicted, you appeal, but since you’re clearly in the wrong, ultimately you get a final eviction order. Accordingly, you get a notice from sheriff’s office that you’ll get evicted on May 1st, approved by court. However, on April 30th, the sheriff looks at the calendar wrong, and thinks that your eviction date is today, and evicts you. A clear mistake, in violation of court order to remove you on May 1st. However, is it a violation of your due process? No, there was absolutely no judicial process that you were not given access to, that would have prevented your too early eviction. What is the legal remedy that you should be accorded after the fact? I actually don’t know. I would actually be fine with no remedy or damages at all: the government does extremely detrimental things to people all the time that have no remedy whatsoever, the sovereign/qualified immunity and all that, but if you insisted on some damages, I’d accept the sheriff reimbursing you for any actual cost caused by too early eviction, like eg. one night hotel stay.

Now, imagine a judge ordering the sheriff to kick the landlord out of the freshly vacated home, and effectuate your return to the home that you were about to get evicted from anyway. It just so happens that you were also a wanted fugitive on federal charges, and as you were getting evicted by state officers, federal officers use the opportunity to arrest you and throw you in federal prison. The judge then require the state sheriff to somehow “facilitate” your release from federal prison, without specifying in any way whatsoever as to how exactly you are supposed to do it, or what that even means. Lastly, it issues a statewide injunction on any evictions unless you get one more hearing after final (already appealed) eviction order, with another ability to appeal the outcome of that hearing, to prevent additional future eviction mistakes.

Most people would see this as a mockery of justice, an excessive concern for the rights of someone who is clearly in the wrong, and meaningful making it even more difficult for people who are in the right to have their rights enforced. And yet, here we are.

Most people would see this as a mockery of justice, an excessive concern for the rights of someone who is clearly in the wrong, and meaningful making it even more difficult for people who are in the right to have their rights enforced.

What bearing does being "in the wrong" have on a persons rights? How does what's happening in the Garcia case make it more difficult for people who are in the right to have their rights enforced?

Americans are in the right to want to deport tens of millions of illegals, and excessive concern for the rights of illegals make it meaningfully more difficult to enforce the right to remove them.

Americans are in the right to want to deport tens of millions of illegals

I'm one of them!

and excessive concern for the rights of illegals make it meaningfully more difficult to enforce the right to remove them.

Who are you to say my concern is excessive?

In the Garcia case, the government made a mistake by not complying with that withholding. There is an implication here that if Garcia’s due process rights were met, he would not have been deported to El Salvador.

That's not true, there was certainly a way to meet his rights and still deport him to ES. At the very least, the executive ought to dissolve its own order.

There is no amount of due process that will prevent government from ever making mistakes of this sort

Seriously? There is no amount of due process that will prevent the government from not following its own orders?

I feel like "there is a reliable central database run by a group half as competent as the dude responsible for delivering burritos" isn't even an amount of due process, it's a basic measure of government competence.

and excessive efforts of judiciary and activists using the judiciary to prevent mistakes meaningfully detract from the Executive’s ability to execute its core function.

I'm not sure a case about the judiciary restraining a dysfunctional government is really meaningfully detracting the government from getting its shit together. If anything, a kick in the ass might actually help them realize that in order to execute their core function, they first need to achieve operational competence.

At the very least, the executive ought to dissolve its own order.

No, because they were not aware of that order. They should have, but they weren’t. That’s why it was a mistake. If they were aware of this this order, they would have either followed it and deported him elsewhere, or seeked dissolution before deporting him to El Salvador. Your retort only makes sense under assumption that they knew about the order but chose to ignore it nevertheless. In my previous post I explicitly assumed this to not be the case, and said that if it was the case, then the situation and the analysis is completely different.

There is no amount of due process that will prevent the government from not following its own orders?

Yes, exactly, because after following all the due legal process, someone can still make a mistake. Think about my example of sheriff looking at the calendar wrong. I’m not saying that what they did was right. It was wrong. However, it was not a wrong that could have been prevented by scheduled due process.

I feel like "there is a reliable central database run by a group half as competent as the dude responsible for delivering burritos" isn't even an amount of due process, it's a basic measure of government competence.

I actually think that the US government does not have nearly enough databases of its citizens and present non-citizens, but yes, I fully agree that what happened here was incompetence. The point is, incompetence will occasionally happen, due process cannot and will not prevent all incompetence-induced errors, and it is not possible to prevent every case of incompetence before the fact with some pre-defined process without significantly compromising effectiveness in executing basic functions.

If anything, a kick in the ass might actually help them realize that in order to execute their core function, they first need to achieve operational competence.

Maybe, but I suspect that what happened here is that they wanted to actually execute their core function before activist judges tarpit them, and rushed things so much that they missed an order that someone failed to input properly into database back in 2019, or something like that. This is not meant to imply that they didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just operating in hostile legal environment will cause mistake rate to be higher.

I think we agree on a number of things: this was incompetence and that due legal process will not prevent all incompetence-based errors.

I think where we disagree is that this particular error was incompetence of such degree as to be a violation of due process (all but conceded by the government anyway) and that violations of this kind (ignorance of a duly entered legal order that they had a legal duty to know about) are the kind of things that can be prevented. One doesn't need to think that every error can be prevented to believe that such a glaringly obvious one can be.

Maybe, but I suspect that what happened here is that they wanted to actually execute their core function before activist judges tarpit them, and rushed things so much that they missed an order that someone failed to input properly into database back in 2019, or something like that. This is not meant to imply that they didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just operating in hostile legal environment will cause mistake rate to be higher.

I think they are quickly going to learn that this strategy. And the sooner they internalize that if they don't do so, they are going to be restrained from doing anything, the sooner that lesson gets passed up the chain that if their leadership wants anything done, they better do it properly.

More comments

Boasberg doesn’t have anything to do with Garcia

Ya mixed them up. Fixed.

If a crowd of people clamor outside the courthouse for a man’s innocence or guilt, judges were and should be swayed by it.

Oh, we tried the will of the people thing in Germany. The legal phrase was gesundes Volksempfinden (the healthy moral sentiment of the people).

"Punished is he who commits an act which is made punishable by the law or which according to the rationale of the criminal code and the healthy moral sentiment of the people deserves to be punished".

It closed all the loopholes with minimal legislative effort. Of course, it also really lowered our ranking with regard to rule of law, so we were persuaded to give it up.

A judge should apply the laws, not bent them to what he perceives as the will of the people. If the outcome of a trial depends on whether there are demonstrators outside rooting for a conviction or an acquittal, then we can safe a ton of court costs and just let the mobs with their nooses run the show instead. (The popular sentiment will certainly influence the jury, but even there -- with the contested exception of jury nullification -- the task of the jury is to reach a verdict based on the evidence, not popularity. Arguing that someone is a terrible person and should be punished no matter if he did the act he is accused of is not how things should be done.)

If the framers of the constitution had wanted the judges to just follow the way the wind is blowing from the Trump administration with regard to immigration, they could just have given the president the right to replace any and all federal judges whenever he felt like it. They did not, and I do not think that was an oversight on their part.

Do you mean that the court of public opinion could de jure influence outcomes in the court of law?

Christians blamed the Jews (the civilians) and not Pilate, who ultimately sentenced Christ, for his execution.

Because the New Testament correctly attributes the cause of Jesus’ death to the Jews who instigated His crucifixion. The Romans were the useful golem who achieved the Pharisees’ ends; the Roman provincial leadership were never much interested in what they perceived as internal Jewish squabbling over another potential Messiah. To wit, from 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15.

“For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind…”

I think it's fair to blame some Jews (not even all Jews) of the first century for Jesus' death. The real error that Christians made was a) blaming all Jews for this, and b) transferring that guilt onto their descendants. No crime is so monstrous that an entire race of people should carry that guilt. There were plenty of Jews even at the time who were innocent of the crime (for example, Mary, all the apostles minus Judas, etc), let alone their descendants centuries later.

The gospels are very clear that guilt for the déicide transfers to the unconverted descendants of the Jews(that’s what ‘orémus pro perfideis Judaeaorum…’ actually means).

transferring that guilt onto their descendants

If the New Testament is to be believed (and I believe it) the Jews that killed Christ willingly chose to transfer that guilt to their descendants (inasmuch as such a thing is actually metaphysically possible I suppose, but I'm not here to debate Original Sin):

"And all the people answered and said, 'His blood be on us and on our children.'"

Matthew 27:25

I’m not really interested in arguing over who was to blame for the death of Jesus. Clearly It was obviously extraordinarily historically convenient for the later extremely successful proselytizing of the religion to Roman elites that the singular Roman elite who factually ordered the death of and chose the method of execution of (and had the power to spare) Jesus was absolved of all responsibility and even venerated by many early (and some current) Christians, but that is not an argument in and of itself.

I think the point of Jesus’ death is that he was killed by the legal leaders, religious leaders, and the general public. It wasnt one party but the whole.

Not a theologian, but the whole conversation strikes me as Big Dum. How is Jesus supposed to die for our sins, if he does not, in fact, die? If anything the Jews should be seen as the same kind of useful golem to Gods grand plan that he says the Pilate was.

He had to suffer, but not through you.

He had to be dishonored, but not by you.

He had to be judged, but not by you.

He had to be hung up, but not by you and by your right hand.

Melito of Sardis, "On Pascha," writing sometime between 120-160.

It's important to remember that Christianity rejects Consequentialism - even if God can bring good from evil, it's still bad to be the one whose hands are in the cookie jar. It was God's role to save, not humanity's role to pin Him down into a specific method of salvation.

Yes, but what I was taught was that what killed him was our sins (I'll take a guess that this is what is meant by "by you" here), not the specific actions of the Pilate, the Pharisees, or the population of Jerusalem.

Specifically here, Melito is explicitly talking about Jews. There may be some devotional aspect intended, that recalls to us our sins and their consequences, but look at the context:

O Israel, what have you done?

Is it not written for you: "You shall not spill innocent blood"

so that you might not die the death of the wicked?

"I" said Israel. "I killed the Lord."

Why? "Because he had to die"

You have erred, O Israel, to reason so

about the slaughter of the Lord.

He had to suffer, but not through you.

He had to be dishonored, but not by you.

He had to be judged, but not by you.

He had to be hung up, but not by you and by your right hand.

This, O Israel, is the cry with which you should have called to God:

"O master, if your son should suffer,

and this is your will,

let him suffer indeed, but not by me.

Let him suffer through foreigners,

let him be judged by the uncircumcised,

let him be nailed in place by a tyrannical right hand,

not mine."

The clear and uncontested facts are that a US district judge enjoined Florida (specifically the AGs of Florida) from enforcing 811.102, yet this person was arrested (Case #2025 MM 000739 A001) under 811.102. This clearly seems contradictory, yet it still happened.

Let's delve into what might happen in this case. Let's say that Florida (or more specifically Florida officials) just want to YOLO disobey the order. Ex parte Young says that any state officials who disobey the order can be held in contempt of court, which could result in an unpleasant visit by a bunch of federal agents. So it's probably safe to say that none of the defendants are going to disobey this order, unless they have the balls to try to overturn Ex parte Young.

But maybe the defendants aren't right in this case. I looked at the complaint in courtlistener: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.686918/gov.uscourts.flsd.686918.1.0.pdf and it only lists the AGs in Florida. This seems to be the general procedure for this kind of suit, and it's consistent with other suits filed challenging criminal law in other states. (Checking some other constitutional challenge cases, some name the police as defendants, but others don't. Not sure exactly when it's warranted) But I wonder if there is a loophole, since it doesn't actually apply to any of the cops involved in the process, and it doesn't seem like the police organ of the state is under the AG umbrella. So that means maybe that cops can freely arrest people for violations of 811.102 at will.

Of course in general cops won't want to arrest and jail people who won't ever have charges filed. This is partially why criminals are allowed to run free by the cops in districts with Soros prosecutors, because the police feel it's futile to arrest people who will just be released immediately. But that doesn't mean the cops can't arrest them, they just generally won't. But maybe in this case since they can just hand the illegals over to a cooperative ICE as soon as charges aren't filed, so it's still a happy ending.

If this is indeed the case, then the entire thing is simply the result of a technicality. The plaintiffs will have to amend their case to add the proper police officials, serve a bunch of people, and ask for another TRO. But again if that's the case, this loophole only works once, as plaintiffs in the future will need to remember to add the extra defendants in future suits.

Which specific officials or entities get sued depends on what claims the plaintiffs are making and what relief they're seeking. Basically, who is responsible for the bad act you're challenging, and who is capable of giving you the relief you seek. Here, the plaintiffs are making what's called a facial claim, meaning they are challenging the constitutionality of the statute "on its face." They're claiming it's inherently unconstitutional in all possible applications. They therefore only need to sue the state-level officials, as the actions of individual officers are almost irrelevant. By contrast, an "as-applied" challenge merely claims that a particular application of a law is unconstitutional (e.g., a police search conducted without a warrant), not the underlying law itself. In that case, you would sue the individual officers responsible since they're the ones who acted in error.

Even so, the AG has no power over the police in general. So at least at this phase of the litigation, it would seem that the TRO would only affect the defendants of the lawsuit, which would include the AG and anyone under their control.

That's not how it works. First, the police do not have the authority to enforce the law, strictly speaking. Their job is to investigate crimes and provide evidence to the local prosecutors, who are the ones actually in charge of enforcing the laws; no matter how good a case he thinks he has, a cop can't force prosecution if the DA drops the charges. That out of the way, there are some practical reasons why the AG is the defendant in these kinds of cases. While the AG generally doesn't have any supervisory authority over local prosecutor offices, they are still officially responsible for enforcement of the laws in the state. When a plaintiff mounts a facial challenge to a law, the state invariably takes a position on that challenge. If instead you require suits against 67 county prosecutors you get 67 different positions depending on what the DA thinks, and none of those positions may be in accordance with what the government thinks. Similarly, if your guy is in rural Bubb County and out of expedience you only sue the Bubb County prosecutor now you have some rural, part-time prosecutor charged with taking a position on a law that could affect the entire state going forward. If you change the procedure so that the court ruling can only affect Bubb County, then you wind up with a situation where you have a law that ostensibly applies in the entire state but has 67 different meanings depending on what county you're in. Having the AG stand in as defendant allows the Florida government to argue a position on how Florida law should be interpreted.

This suit is actually against 69 different county prosecutors, so your logic is flawed. Check the linked pdf in my top comment.

Basically every state that I know of has statutory holding periods for crimes that the officer merely has probable cause on, but not enough evidence to charge yet. 48 hrs is very standard for this time period. By way of example, imagine you are drinking in a bar and are hammered, a car driven by another guy who is also drunk off his ass speeds into a red light right in front of you, T-Boning a car and killing all 4 occupants. The driver of this car flees his vehicle and tosses you the keys. You are too drunk to know what is going on and start walking home with them. Police arrest you a few blocks away, you being the drunk guy with the keys.

Of course you are going to be held even though you are innocent. The police dont know you are innocent yet, and you are a very good suspect. This is why most states have a 48 hr charging clock. Some have longer, but few as far as I know. Solving crime takes time. Fleeing the cops when you know you are a suspect does not.

Oddly, in this case, the police UNSOLVED a crime, despite an admission from defendant in 48 hours. That is crazy good police work! Imagine if a pedophile admitted to raping a child in a taped interview and police, on their own accord, went out and grabbed surveillance video from a hospital showing he was not at the rape location. Unheard of.

What was the crime? Florida's statute was ruled unenforceable, according to both articles. What was the probable cause? If someone with very poor English skills admits to a crime, when directly asked by LEO, isn't them having misunderstood the question more probable than them providing facts?

Not at all. Cops don't just learn facts from the air. They run background checks which take time to run, and are, frankly, difficult to read.

A person who not only doesn't speak English, but doesn't speak a language that a police station is likely to have an available translator for is going to have a long interaction just because a lot of that time is going to be finding a translator

If he needed a translator, doesn't that cast further doubt on the claim by the arresting officer "who wrote in his report that Lopez-Gomez said he was in the country illegally" that the interaction indicated Lopez-Gomez was confessing to a crime?

But doesn’t that cast further doubt on the suspect?

Everyone legally in the country being fluent in the lingua franca would be nice, but not speaking the lingua franca is not evidence of being in the country illegally.

It isn’t dispositive but it is evidence

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who has little-to-no English language skills about something? It's entirely possible the dude repeated a combination of sounds back at the officer without really understanding what he was saying. Or that he was knowingly admitting to skipping border checkpoints.

It's entirely possible the dude repeated a combination of sounds back at the officer without really understanding what he was saying

To quote My Cousin Vinny, "I shot the clerk!?"

It's entirely possible the dude repeated a combination of sounds back at the officer without really understanding what he was saying.

That's my point.

I mean, if we were introducing that "confession" as evidence at a trial, you may have a point. What actually was happening when he was being held was he was in custody pending an investigation. This guys statements were basically the jumping off point for the investigation which eventually revealed he was a US citizen by birth. Its not like the police would have had that information available on a street corner when they were probably having trouble getting enough information on him to even run a proper criminal background check.

Florida's statute was ruled unenforceable, according to both articles.

This is false. There is a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking Florida from enforcing the statute, but no ruling or judgement was made on the merits of the case.

  • The guy was born here, but left the US as an infant
  • It's highly probable that he did not have a passport or else they'd have mentioned it, so it's very likely he returned to the US through illegal means and not at a lawful port of entry.
  • He did not speak English.
  • He was arrested with two other likely illegal immigrants from Mexico.
  • He was held but released after his citizenship was verified.

If anything this proves the system is favorable to people like him, or at least working as intended.

So, are we inferring he's an anchor baby all grown up? That his noncitizen mother came here for a short span of time to have him, and then left?

Look, I understand the current legal framework that makes this foreign national a "citizen" on paper. Justify it to me though, morally or philosophically. What makes him a part of the same polity as me? Is this the sort of person we want eligible to become President one day? Is he, and those like him, going to craft and enforce government policy against me one day?

Well... more than they already have...

All I see is a legal tangle of obviously immoral and nation destroying nonsense, where all the viable solutions are extralegal.

I don't see any legal tangle, it is pretty clear that he is an american citizen. He even seems to be gainfully employed in the construction industry. Will he become President? That's a long shot, but not grounds for taking preemptive 'extralegal' actions against him. (What a darling you are.)

Yes I think blanket birthright citizenship is a mistake and we should at the very least repeal it for those whose parents came here illegally.

So, are we inferring he's an anchor baby all grown up? That his noncitizen mother came here for a short span of time to have him, and then left?

We don't need to infer it, various articles state it outright.

It's highly probable that he did not have a passport or else they'd have mentioned it, so it's very likely he returned to the US through illegal means and not at a lawful port of entry.

Florida's statute was ruled unenforceable, according to both articles. ICE should have flagged him at the border, but asking Florida to continue holding him solves nothing.

Florida's statute was ruled unenforceable, according to both articles.

This is false. There is a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking Florida from enforcing the statute, but no ruling or judgement was made on the merits of the case.

I was hastily imprecise, but, for the duration of the TRO, I think it is reasonable to say that a TRO is a subtype of "ruled unenforceable" and/or that a TRO vs a ruling on the merits is a distinction without a difference, in discussing an applicable case.

The distinction is actually quite important. At this point in litigation, the law is still on the books and fully valid and enforceable. The only obligation coming from the court order applies to the defendants, and they are temporarily restrained from enforcing this law. Anyone else involved in the legal process in unaffected.

In this sort of suit, assuming things go in favor of the plaintiffs, the judge will generally also enter declaratory relief if requested, which sets precedent that the law is unconstitutional according to US courts. At that point, police trying to enforce the law need to start watching their backs, because enforcing a clearly unconstitutional law can be considered a wrongful arrest.

But at this point the court, from a legal perspective, is still leaving it open as to whether or not the law is unconstitutional. So the QI shield on the officers will likely not be broken. And as non-parties to the lawsuit, the police have no worries of being held in contempt.

How does that apply to the individuals in this case?

They can cite the TRO as persuasive authority when arguing their case charges should be dismissed. Not having read it, I don't have any conclusions as to the coherence of the judges ruling on the TRO.

I remember something like it happening once during the first Trump administration. Guy was born in Texas to a Mexican immigrant mother. Details are fuzzy, but the gist was that the mother was playing games with the son's citizenship status when he was little to make it easier to travel back and forth from Texas to Mexico and didn't actually have proof that he was an American citizen. The situation ended up getting resolved after it made the news, and a retired maternity nurse remembered the mother and scrounged up some sort of personal memento (thank you note on hospital letterhead or something) that helped confirm the guy's status.

From your first link:

The 20-year-old’s first language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language, and he took a long pause when he was asked if he wanted to hire a private attorney or obtain a public defender. He lived in Mexico from the time he was 1-year-old until four years ago, when he returned to Georgia, his mother told the Phoenix.

I wonder if there's some similar thing where even though he's a citizen, he traveled internationally in less-than legal methods.

I wonder if there's some similar thing where even though he's a citizen, he traveled internationally in less-than legal methods.

Florida's statute was ruled unenforceable, according to both articles. ICE should have flagged him at the border, but asking Florida to continue holding him solves nothing.

  • -10

Florida's statute was ruled unenforceable, according to both articles.

This is false. There is a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking Florida from enforcing the statute, but no ruling or judgement was made on the merits of the case.

I know you are responding to a post that is identical to another and I believe it is valuable to use the same format to highlight the problem, so I don't mean to target you but I feel like I have a brain injury while reading the motte now.

If you read to the end of the linked article, he seemingly was released, except possibly for an unrelated drunk driving charge, the article gets a little vague there.

ICE should have flagged him at the border,

I'm hypothesizing that he came in the same way as his illegal friends and never stopped at a border checkpoint. I don't actually know who is responsible for dealing with a US citizen who has been hopping borders without bothering with any of that pesky visa/passport business. Google searching does seem to indicate ICE being involved in those investigations. Florida holding him for a reasonable time frame until ICE can question him about that seems like it would be germane to solving a potential visa/passport issue.

I'm hypothesizing that he came in the same way as his illegal friends and never stopped at a border checkpoint

ICE should have caught him at the border (... and then let him in), in this case.

It bothers me that I was born a citizen by blood, but my parents still had to do more paperwork to establish that than these guys who slip across the border and don't speak English.

I’m a bit unsympathetic to the idea of people claiming US citizenship when they’ve basically always lived in another country. It’s bad faith. Your mother gamed the system by giving birth in America (jackpot! US citizenship!) but then as soon as she’s medically cleared she goes home and raises the kid as (in this case) a Mexican, doesn’t pay taxes, doesn’t teach him English or about the USA. Like, he should not be a citizen as he has no actual connection to America other than his mother crossing the border specifically to give birth, and even then could not be bothered to pay for supporting documentation. Birth tourism is not something we should allow.

A criterion like 3/4's of your life spent in the US if you're under 18 and 3/4's of your childhood in the US if you're over 18 would be much better. On the other side of it, there are people whose parents moved when they were infants, are fully connected to the US and have no memory of living outside, and don't get citizenship.

I'd also say it's likely that the people who enshrined jus soli for the United States could never imagine a world where a (common) pregnant women could not only travel, but also give safely give birth in a foreign land that they were not intent on living in for the rest of their lives, or that they would even want to!

I'm curious how opposition to jus soli has evolved over time to match the world that we live in due to technological advances (e.g. maternal mortality rates).

Jus Soli was never intended to be enshrined for birth tourism of any kind, and 1865 isn't so long ago that those people couldn't have imagined better boats and people coming in from Mexico temporarily. There is a reason Wong Kim Ark is about the child of legal permanent residents and there is a reason the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 had to be passed to grant Indian's citizenship, and that reason is that the 14th Amendment does not contemplate expansive jus soli as currently defined. Instead, it applies to people borne her who have no other foreign allegiances, and those who have taken substantive steps to submit themselves to US Jurisdiction as subjects of the nation.

And, of course, it goes without saying that in 1865 the idea of a dual citizen would have been considered absurd by all the people involved.

I think it need at minimum an establishment of residence of some sort, preferably several years. If you have to live in the country legally, pay taxes, have a residences within the country, I get that. But I just cannot logically justify the idea that I could cross the border while in labor, go to the emergency room in Brownsville TX, pop out a baby, and that baby being legally American. I’m not even sure you couldn’t push this to absurdity— like if only my Uterus enters the United States and the baby comes out at the border, is that enough to satisfy jus soli or does the entire woman have to physically cross the border for the baby to be a citizen?

Imagine a pregnant woman sticking her butt through the bars in the border wall and pushing the baby out though the crack.

It a legitimate thought experiment. I mean there’s a point at which you reach absurdity and singularity and quite often can point out the problems with the idea in question. If I can basically stick my ass through a fence and pop the baby out and it’s a citizen of the country, I think the absurdity of the idea is clear. You just can’t coherently have citizenship grant rights and not have at least some form control over who gets the benefits.

should not be a citizen as he has no actual connection

It's only consistent, as the US rather aggressively applies citizenship. There's a basket industry for "accidental citizens" who first discover they're American upon receiving a 6-7 figure bill for back taxes and renouncing citizenship incurs a tax on all assets. Further, because of FATCA, they suddenly get debanked.

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