The government’s stationing of immigration detention hubs in the South — an area covered by one of the nation’s most conservative appeals court systems — has all but guaranteed that the Trump administration receives judicial endorsement of its rushed removals for people deemed “alien enemies,” as a closely watched case showed on Monday.
The discussion before a three-judge panel of judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, often described as the most conservative leaning in the country, showed that the majority seemed reticent to even question whether President Donald Trump could tap a 227-year-old law that supercharges Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations.
The mere topic of illegal immigration drew strong reactions from Judge Andrew Stephen Oldham, a Trump appointee whose time as Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s general counsel while he was still the state’s attorney general put him on the front lines of the state’s clash with the federal government and border crossers.