The present isn't even the present. Looked at objectively, perhaps, the present is only more of the same recent past.
January, 2017: The U.S. is pulled out of the TPP or The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that it made.
June, 2017: The United States is pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord agreements that it made.
July, 2017: In a lawsuit called Flores which the Federal Government has been litigating against immigrants since 1985, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals put an end to another attempt to pull out of another agreement that the Federal Government made.
This time, the attempt was not successful. This time, the Federal Government had to ask the approval of a Federal Judge to approve the pullout and instead the Federal Judge said that the Federal Government should keep its word.
This time, the agreement at issue was the Federal government's 1997 agreement in the Flores case not to detain immigrant children for an "unreasonable time," which is reportedly any time more than 20 days.
The Federal Government also agreed to a second thing. The Federal Government agreed not to confine minors in unlicensed facilities.
That is the deal that the U.S. made, and that is the deal that the U.S. has tried to pull out of, more than once.
The litigation that ended in July, 2017 began during the Obama Administration in 2015. Federal Judges had enforced the agreement a couple of times already.
In a portent of things to come, apparently, the alleged breaches that came to a head at more or less this same time last year, included allegations of confining minors for long times in "secure, unlicensed facilities," i.e., prisons.
You can read the story of last year's attempt to overturn this particular agreement of the Federal Government, at Flores v. Jefferson B. Sessions, John Kelly, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and ICE, et al., 862 F.3d 863 (9th Cir. 2017).
May, 2018: After the U.S. made an agreement with many nations over the Iran nuclear program, the United States is pulled out of that agreement.
June, 2018: Now another attempt is again made to pull the United States out of an agreement. Specifically, now the Federal Government is once again asking a Federal Judge to let the Federal Government out of its agreement not to detain immigrant children in unlicensed facilities, and also for no more than 20 days.
No recognizable legal arguments now.
This time children are hidden hostages.
If the Judge does not bless the Federal Government pulling out of this agreement, then the Federal Government says that it will separate the immigrant children from their parents and lock the children up separately. Again. Download Flores v. Sessions Doc. No. 435.1 (Feds) Memorandum in Support of Ex Parte Motion for Relief From Flores Settlement Agreement Filed June 21 2018 (C.D. Cal. Case No. CV 85.4544 DMG (AGRx)).
There is a hearing scheduled on June 29 on related matters in the case. Perhaps then this 'ex parte' move will be addressed. Publicly, in the daylight, and not under cover of darkness this time.
"The likes of which the world has never seen before."
Publicly.
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