People keep saying, “Why aren’t the courts doing anything about ICE?”
They are.
Federal courts have ruled thousands of times that ICE unlawfully detained people. Reuters reported that judges have found ICE illegally jailed individuals more than 4,400 times. There are also multiple active lawsuits alleging excessive force, denial of medical care, abusive detention conditions, and unconstitutional arrests.
The problem isn’t that the courts aren’t ruling against ICE. The problem is that many of these rulings apply to individual cases or specific jurisdictions rather than creating nationwide policy. Critics argue that ICE has continued many of the same practices despite repeated adverse court decisions.
Those are two very different issues. One is whether the judiciary is checking ICE’s conduct. The other is whether ICE is consistently changing its behavior in response to those rulings.
The US Justice System was recently handicapped by banning Federal appeals court rulings from being applied nationwide. As a result, the compromised and corrupt Supreme Court is the one and only court in the entire nation that’s allowed to make a nationwide ruling.
This is a misleading characterization of what actually happened.
The Supreme Court did not ban federal appeals courts from issuing rulings that apply throughout their circuits, nor did it declare that only the Supreme Court can make decisions with broad legal effect.
What the Court addressed was the use of nationwide (universal) injunctions, where a single district judge blocks a federal policy across the entire country before the case has fully worked its way through the courts. Those are not the same thing as appellate court precedents.
The practical effect is that different circuits may reach different conclusions until the Supreme Court resolves the conflict. That’s how the federal judicial system has traditionally functioned. Appeals court decisions are still binding within their own circuits and continue to shape the law.
If you want to argue that limiting nationwide injunctions is a bad policy, that’s a legitimate position. But saying the decision “banned federal appeals court rulings from being applied nationwide” or made the Supreme Court “the only court allowed to make nationwide rulings” is inaccurate. It conflates two different legal concepts to support a broader political narrative.
I couldn’t find a case where someone was acquitted specifically because they fought an unidentified or plainclothes ICE agent. If that had happened, it’d probably be a pretty high-profile precedent.
What I did find were multiple cases where charges were dropped, people were released, or courts ruled against ICE after video evidence contradicted the agents’ version of events or judges found the arrests or detention were unlawful.
So it’s not true that the courts are just rubber-stamping everything ICE does. They’re ruling against ICE all the time. The bigger issue is that many of those rulings are case-specific and don’t automatically change ICE’s practices nationwide.
Are courts actually doing anything to stop ICE, or just awarding damages with taxpayer money? Dropped charges won’t help if you’re in a Salvadoran death camp.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
People keep saying, “Why aren’t the courts doing anything about ICE?”
They are.
Federal courts have ruled thousands of times that ICE unlawfully detained people. Reuters reported that judges have found ICE illegally jailed individuals more than 4,400 times. There are also multiple active lawsuits alleging excessive force, denial of medical care, abusive detention conditions, and unconstitutional arrests.
The problem isn’t that the courts aren’t ruling against ICE. The problem is that many of these rulings apply to individual cases or specific jurisdictions rather than creating nationwide policy. Critics argue that ICE has continued many of the same practices despite repeated adverse court decisions.
Those are two very different issues. One is whether the judiciary is checking ICE’s conduct. The other is whether ICE is consistently changing its behavior in response to those rulings.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
So the US justice system is utterly toothless and ineffective and may as well essentially not exist.
justastranger@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The US Justice System was recently handicapped by banning Federal appeals court rulings from being applied nationwide. As a result, the compromised and corrupt Supreme Court is the one and only court in the entire nation that’s allowed to make a nationwide ruling.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is a misleading characterization of what actually happened.
The Supreme Court did not ban federal appeals courts from issuing rulings that apply throughout their circuits, nor did it declare that only the Supreme Court can make decisions with broad legal effect.
What the Court addressed was the use of nationwide (universal) injunctions, where a single district judge blocks a federal policy across the entire country before the case has fully worked its way through the courts. Those are not the same thing as appellate court precedents.
The practical effect is that different circuits may reach different conclusions until the Supreme Court resolves the conflict. That’s how the federal judicial system has traditionally functioned. Appeals court decisions are still binding within their own circuits and continue to shape the law.
If you want to argue that limiting nationwide injunctions is a bad policy, that’s a legitimate position. But saying the decision “banned federal appeals court rulings from being applied nationwide” or made the Supreme Court “the only court allowed to make nationwide rulings” is inaccurate. It conflates two different legal concepts to support a broader political narrative.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As opposed to yours? In the UK? Seriously?
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Yeah I’m not going to take any kind of back talk from a culture that invented cheese in a can.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’m figuring that people in the UK are plenty aware that things are fucked.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Has anyone been acquitted for battering an ICE agent because they were unidentified attackers?
mechoman444@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Specifically acquitted, no.
I couldn’t find a case where someone was acquitted specifically because they fought an unidentified or plainclothes ICE agent. If that had happened, it’d probably be a pretty high-profile precedent.
What I did find were multiple cases where charges were dropped, people were released, or courts ruled against ICE after video evidence contradicted the agents’ version of events or judges found the arrests or detention were unlawful.
So it’s not true that the courts are just rubber-stamping everything ICE does. They’re ruling against ICE all the time. The bigger issue is that many of those rulings are case-specific and don’t automatically change ICE’s practices nationwide.
Those are two very different questions.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’m also interested in this second question.
Are courts actually doing anything to stop ICE, or just awarding damages with taxpayer money? Dropped charges won’t help if you’re in a Salvadoran death camp.