szreich.bsky.social
Dallas-based lawyer. Supervising attorney for a nonprofit law firm providing immigration services and removal defense to indigent people.
Any opinions I express here are my own.
NOTHING I WRITE HERE IS LEGAL ADVICE.
3,602 posts
1,636 followers
241 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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All of this is absolutely true.
With the possible exception of Clarence Darrow, Justice Marshall has no equal among American litigators.
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LOL!
State-level criminal law produces some of the wildest legal drama. And some of the most insane lawyering.
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"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition," The Federalist No. 51, (A. Hamilton, J. Madison).
Our constitutional order was never designed for ambition facing off against feeble-minded servile sheep.
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Monty Bennett is the biggest piece of shit in Dallas. That is no small accomplishment.
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Scholars of extremism have long noted that the scapegoats are not the ones causing the extremism; they are the bad-faith excuse used by authoritarians to justify doing what they've already set out to accomplish.
/fin
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E.g., the histrionic left has largely vanished from platforms like ExTwitter and Facebook. The result hasn't been a move back toward the center; in fact, the authoritarian drift has accelerated.
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I've been reading @stevanzetti.bsky.social's work for a long time. He's genuinely open to counterarguments. Even when I disagree with him, I understand his reasons.
The "annoying leftists saying mean things" theory doesn't remotely account how we got here, or why things are getting worse.
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Cillian Murphy as Ludwig Wittgenstein.
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Fucking insane.
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A black man wrapping himself in the flag, showing him as patriotic and claiming America as *his* country too is a direct threat to that paradigm. It's a Black man breaking out of that prescribed role and saying: "No, *you* are the Unamerican one here. I'm American as apple pie."
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The center of the constitutional crisis we are in is not boohoo Ds don't get the policies they want and Rs do after Rs take a trifecta. It sucks, but that's how elections work. The crisis is that they are abrogating the powers of the congress and the judiciary entirely to a central dictatorship
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Yes. What's your question?
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The Trump Admin's arguments are evil and stupid. They're also weirdly low energy.
They went into court and largely copy/pasted Fuller's dissent from Wong.
Imagine being such a feeble lawyer that the best you can do is warm up a 150-yr-old loser argument.
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Jonathan Turley is on the case!
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J. Thomas, concurring:
I write separately to note that J. Alito is incorrect to ignore the history and tradition of our jurisprudence—extending back to the courts in Saxony—of having a king. It is time to discard this historical aberration of a sovereignless state.
I concur with the result.
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Also, @cathygellis.bsky.social, great article!
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I don't know the immigration status of any of these guys...
A non-USC convicted of violating any of the 18 USC § 1030 offenses noted in this article should probably call an immigration atty with experience in removal defense.
Even without a conviction, admitting to the elements could be a problem.
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Note, immigration is a *civil* not *criminal* matter.
These ICE-ERO thugs have Officer-Blart levels of competence. They should get back to patrolling the Lady Footlocker.
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This refers to "amici curiae" briefs submitted in pending cases.
Normally, only the parties in a case are allowed to make arguments. The Court may allow a non-party to make an argument.
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A brief so awful that only Jonathan Turley could find it persuasive.
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Anyone doing this kind of thing is insane and begging for the the federal judiciary to benchslap you.
Insane for anyone *other* than the Trump administration. SCOTUS has already excused more egregious conduct by Trump.
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What you're imagining is the case isn't really what is happening.
What is happening is that ICE is trying to meet arrest quotas, and they get the same credit for arresting someone they ask to come into their office as someone absconding, so they're going after the people trying to cooperate.
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I have a client who is a grandmother that was detained on Friday. She has no criminal record, was paroled by ICE, and is waiting for her first hearing scheduled in a few months.
Her bond case will likely be trivial to win, but ICE-ERO doesn't care-they got a quota to meet!
/fin
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Once there, they're getting arrested. Remember, ICE has the authority to detain people they've previously released, and that's what they're doing.
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According to local reporting here in Dallas, the Dallas ICE office has a quota of 75 arrests per day. It seems ICE knows that people trying to cooperate, who are in removal proceedings fighter their asylum case, and were paroled in b/c they're not dangerous, will come to their office.
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Yes, it's still early days. But not so early that massive changes haven't hit.
E.g., in Dallas Imm. Ct., ERO agents now patrol inside the courthouse. ICE is sending letters to people with pending asylum cases in court, and who were paroled. When they show up to ICE, they're arrested.
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Yes, but you need to point to the legal err you're appealing.
If you don't have a defense available (e.g., asylum, 42b, etc.), your appeal is going to be over very quickly. And remember that a removal order affirmed by the BIA and appealed to the Cir. Ct. is final, so can be executed by ICE.
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'Prior' being the operative word here.
An approved I-192 won't help you if you're subsequently ordered removed.
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The point is that empty facile slogans popular among immigration skeptics demonstrate that they either don't know, or don't care, about the these details.
/fin
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And the kick in the pants? U Visas only last 4 years!
And I cannot emphasize this enough—examples like these are examples of people who are trying their goddamn best to do it the right way.
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And maybe you don't care, thinking that sitting outside the US for 1 year doesn't sound that harsh. But if they've been deported, they're not eligible (without a waiver that takes ~5 yrs to process) to return to the US for 10 years, even if they have an approved U Visa.
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In immigration court, if those applicants don't have another defense available where they can stall for time until their U Visa arrives, you're looking at people who are likely to be deported, and then given a U Visa next year.
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So you have the exact same department both issuing these people work authorizations which entitles them to legally work anywhere in the US, and deport them.
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Except those people still don't have legal status until a visa becomes available. Worse still, Trump's ICE is right now arresting such U Visa applicants and seeking to deport them. ICE and USCIS are both part of Dept. of Homeland Security.
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And so they go on a waiting list for when a new visa is available. Meanwhile, USCIS provides those people with work authorizations during the wait.
Seems reasonable, right?
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E.g., Congress sets a yearly limit on U Visas (visas for victims of serious crimes who assist policy/prosecutors). When that limit is reached, the applicant is given a 'bona fide determination' letter that saying that, but for the congressional quota, the visa would be approved.
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US imm. law is a tangled mess of statutes, case law, and admin. practices going back 200 years. If you look at each individual section, it might seem reasonable, but mixed together, problems become insane, and very quickly.
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I do this for a living, so please forgive my intervention in this conversation.
Saying "enforcing our immigration laws" betrays a facile understanding of both: (a) US imm. law; and (b) what is happening now.
Let me explain.
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I did a quick search, and I can't find a single case where someone was charged under 31 USC § 1350.
Considering the conduct proscribed there overlaps with 18 USC 641, but applies only to fed employees and features lower penalties, it doesn't surprise me.
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I agree with every word you wrote with the exception of three words:
"all prelude to" should be deleted from your post.
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bsky.app/profile/szre...
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Mr. Musk's associates are dangerously close to walking into 18 USC § 641 charges.
Or they would be if the DOJ hadn't been purged of all independence.
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If you want to spend a few pro bono hours fighting back, I have cases that might give you some satisfaction.
I'm serious. DM me if you're interested.
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This may well be the greatest 1A analogy ever written.
Bravo!