DHS seems to have pissed off a federal judge in one of the many ongoing litigations around gutting much of the federal government. This one is brought — ironically — by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights against DHS and is about DHS shutting down several statute-mandated offices that provide oversight of the treatment of people in DHS custody (which of course includes ICE custody). You can tell why Trump wants to abolish those offices. That’s the substance. But the technical issue is just as important and it’s one that applies to things happening across the federal government.
As we’ve discussed, the Trump approach to gutting these agencies and offices is to say we’re not shutting anything down we’re not allowed to. We’re just reorganizing. And the “reorganizing” usually amounts to firing everyone except like five people. And broadly the administration’s argument is, you can’t micromanage how we run these federal departments. So the question is whether judges will look to the underlying substance and say, wait, you’re not “reorganizing” anything. You’re just shutting it down. And you’re not allowed to do that.
I haven’t been following this case super close. But as I understand it, the gist is that DHS has been making this argument to federal Judge Ana C. Reyes. But internally they’ve been sloppy and within DHS they’ve just openly been saying, yeah, we’re shutting this place down. That got back to the judge and she ordered the government to explain themselves by 8 p.m. tonight. From what I can tell, it’s kind of the same pattern we’ve seen in so many of these cases. Everyone knows what’s going on here. They’re shutting it down. So it’s not like the judge just found out what was happening. Or at least that’s how I interpret this. But they’ve been playing her as a chump. Curious to see what happens this evening.
