This amicus brief brief is simply… preposterously wrong on the law.
Here, after six years of litigation, including several appeals in the Ninth Circuit, and at least one US Supreme Court decision, the state of Alabama proposes to intervene, permissively — because it doesn’t like that Tangerine will no longer be able to violate the law with his “policies” — if a consent decree is entered (assuming the unlikely possibility that he is elected again in 2024).
Riiiight. It has long been the law, that during the pendency of litigation involving agencies of the federal government, when a new Administration takes over, and regulatory or enforcement priorities shift in a lawful fashion, the government may settle cases.
Consider that the federal government no longer asserted (after about 1958) that racial segregation was a “social good“, after Brown v. Board. Or that the federal government made millions eligible for health insurance (after 2014), after the Supremes held Obamacare was lawful, in King v. Burwell.
But this amici group filing claims only now, all these years later, when it declined to enter the litigation at any trial court level — and just looked the other way — now it wants to try to thwart a consent order that would be binding nationwide on the humane treatment of undocumented persons, and asylum seekers. [In sum, it seems the right to undo things, without ever filing its own suit to establish standing in the first place — a hurdle it almost certainly cannot clear.]
Apparently, Alabama, Texas and Florida don’t believe the Supremes meant what they wrote, when they said that bedding and blankets and soap and toothbrushes and toothpaste are the bare minimum migrants — in many cases, children as well — are entitled to, under our treaties and laws.
This is a dead end attempt, to be certain — but I want to note the depravity of the people attempting it, from a few of the red state-houses, and Governors’ mansions.
D A M N.
