Trump Appointed Judge Excoriates Him in Open Court

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1:00Michael Popok:In breaking news, a Trump appointed judge, Judge Kelly, has just found that it's likely the Trump administration has violated trafficking laws, child trafficking laws, by putting 600 children from Guatemala who are in the refugee resettlement program on planes at one o 'clock in the morning over Labor Day weekend to try to take them in the middle of the night back to Guatemala in violation of their due process rights. he's found that the Trump administration's arguments led by Drew Ensign, who also lied to Judge Boesberg about 200 men being sent to El Salvador, same guy, that his arguments that this is nothing more than repatriation, reunification of families, judge, falls like a house of cards.

1:43Michael Popok:It's a quote from Judge Kelly. This matters for due process and it matters that it's Judge Kelly. I had worried when the case moved from the original emergency judge, Judge Suknanen, who had to issue 15 different orders over Labor Day weekend in order to ground the planes to make sure what happened to Judge Boesberg in the District of Columbia, where 200 men were sent in the middle of the night already to El Salvador, didn't happen to her. And I said, well, that's a good set of orders, 15 orders to make sure those kids got sent back to refugee resettlement housing and in their control while the preliminary injunction issues were resolved.

2:23Michael Popok:Well, then the case got transferred to Judge Kelly, who is a I don't want to call a MAGA, but he was appointed by and confirmed by Trump in the first term. And I said, I hope the fact that Kelly gets the case doesn't change the facts. I was wrong. Apologies to Judge Kelly. he did the right thing. Wait till I read you from his memorandum opinion. Michael Popok, you're on Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. Okay, let's get to the breaking news. Here's from the memorandum opinion, which I'm going to be posting on Legal AF Substack so you can read it yourself. Again, Judge Kelly, a Trump appointee, his words.

2:57Michael Popok:Not leftist, not Marxist, not left-wing, not activist judge at all. Just before midnight on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, several executive branch agencies began to implement a plan to expel from the United States certain unaccompanied alien children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services and send them back to their home country. You're already in trouble. The fact that the refugee resettlement program is under the Department of Health and Human Services, that's RFK Jr. Those agencies told the children's caretakers who were hearing about the plan for the first time to have them ready for pickup in as little as two hours.

3:36Michael Popok:The children were roused from their beds in the middle of the night and driven to an airport where some were loaded onto planes. Lawyers got wind of the hasty operation while it was unfolding and filed a lawsuit seeking emergency relief that Sunday, Labor Day Sunday, at 1 a.m. The judge on emergency duty, that's Judge Sukhnanan, entered a temporary restraining order before the agencies and their officials could remove or otherwise transport the children from the U.S. At a hearing, Council for Defendants, that's the Trump administration, explained why it was fairly outrageous for the plaintiffs to have sued that all they wanted to do was reunify the children with their parents in Guatemala.

4:16Michael Popok:Remember, they're in the refugee program. They were sent by their parents to protect them and to be in a protectorate under the United States because they don't want them in Guatemala. The judge continues on page one. But that explanation crumbled like a house of cards about a week later. There is no evidence before the court that the parents of these children sought their return. So Drew Ensign lied. That's another way of saying Drew Ensign, the lawyer for the Department of Justice. Justice, he lied to Judge Boesberg about the planes leaving for El Salvador's Seacott prison, lied to both Judge Suknanen and Judge Kelly.

4:53Michael Popok:To the contrary, Judge Kelly finds, The Guatemalan attorney general reports that officials could not even track down parents for most of the children whom defendants found eligible for their quote unquote reunification plan. And none of those that were located had asked for their children to come back to Guatemala. How bad are things in that part of Guatemala that parents are sending their children unaccompanied to the United States to be protected and then get abused by the Trump administration? The judge then talks about the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. That's a law against child trafficking.

5:29Michael Popok:It sets up certain conditions for the children to make sure they get due process, make sure they go before an administrative law judge, make sure that there is a hearing. None of that happened. The judge noted in this order that an alleged notice to the lawyers for the children was given at like 2 o 'clock in the morning. This is the on page seven. The judge says the communication included a notice to attorney of record that the providers were. These are the people that work for the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The providers were to immediately disseminate to attorneys of record and child advocates, presumably, presumably within that two hour window in the middle of a night on a holiday weekend.

6:13Michael Popok:Thank God the lawyers actually found out about it and put together a complaint and a preliminary injunction motion and an emergency motion to get before Judge Sukhnanen, the duty judge, at 3 a.m. Judge Sukhnanen tried to reach somebody in the Department of Justice at 3 a.m., and she found no one, nobody home. We know that. We know the reason for that. And then on page 10, we get into the part where the judge determined that the Department of Justice and Drew Enson in particular were liars. This episode is brought to you by PrizePix. You and I make decisions every day, but on PrizePix, being right can get you paid.

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8:06Michael Popok:Good reasons to take your children if you can and get them out of harm's way. Page 10 over to 11 of the order. Shortly before the hearing on the preliminary injunction and class certification motions, a recent report from the Guatemalan attorney general came to light that undermines defendants' claims about parental reunification. That was a ruse. That was a lie. The office tried to identify and locate family resources for the 609 adolescents, but could not find. They could only find phone numbers for 204. And then after conducting home visits, the office called them and discovered that the families were surprised and some even annoyed by the outreach because many did not expect their children to be returned to Guatemala.

8:51Michael Popok:Well, there goes Drew Ensign's reunification test pilot program. The parents of one child explained why. Their daughter had received death threats and therefore could not live in Guatemala, so they would do everything possible to get her out of the country again if the United States sent her back. He then went through the standards, and then he eventually issued his order. What's the takeaway from all of this? Drew Ensign's in trouble. I've said it before. I've been talking about Drew Ensign now for six or seven months. He lied to Judge Boesberg. He lied to Judge Zinnis. And he lied to Judge Sukhnanen and now to Judge Kelly.

9:26Michael Popok:He goes in there with a, we're just putting families together. Why are we being sued? All these bottom-all and parents want them back. That was a bald-faced lie. The judge is being nice by saying it was a house of cards. We have another word for that, judge. It's called perjury. It's called lying under oath. It's called violating your duties as a lawyer. all they've been doing about these 600 children is trying to in the middle of the night illegally unconstitutionally get them out of the country we just had a case in which judge chutkin she's the one that presided over donald trump's in a criminal interference case election interference case she just had a rule that she her hands were tied about 17 or 18 people that had already been sent out of the country because she had no jurisdiction that is the goal of the Trump administration to whisk these people away from due process, away from federal court oversight, and put them in third countries where they can't be reached.

10:23Michael Popok:Judge Kelly, because of Judge Suknanen's emergency powers, was able to have jurisdiction to make the ruling. If these kids had left already, he'd be divested of his jurisdiction. He wouldn't be able to make the ruling. That's what the Trump administration, that's the game that they're playing. There's a new, we have our hands on a on a new memo in which just hours, let me see if I can find it, just hours after Judge Suk Nanan grounded the planes and ordered those children in 15 separate orders to be returned to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, some acting director issued a pissy memo to the providers that handle these children, that house these children, to warn them about not following the directions of the Office of Resettlement.

11:15Michael Popok:In other words, disregard what Judge Sukhnan or a federal judge says, you better follow what we say. So we have a memo from Angie Salazar, Acting Director, Office of Refugee Resettlement, on the night of Labor Day weekend, August 31st, several hours after Judge Sukhnot had already grounded those planes, in which she says, when ORR makes a decision regarding the care and custody of a child consistent within and in furtherance of its statutory and legal obligations, your refusal to comply can materially interfere with its ability to effectively complete its statutory mission. Negligent or intentional failure to comply with lawful requests from ORR, notice no mention of federal judges regarding the care of the children in your facility will result in prompt legal action and maybe criminal action.

12:07Michael Popok:I refer you to the above-referenced laws and the Unaccompanied Alien Children Bureau Policy Guide. What happened with the providers? Is this Ms. Salazar telling the providers to violate federal judges' orders? I'll post this in Legal AF Substack for your review as well. So the takeaway is a Trump appointed judge saw through the lies that were provided by the Department of Justice to him and supported all of the findings of Judge Sukhdanen, who was the Biden appointed judge who handled the emergency application. These 600 children are not going anywhere. They're going to be given their due process rights.

12:47Michael Popok:It's going to be determined whether they stay in this country. It's going to be determined whether they have refugee status and whether they should be whether there's any grounds to remove them from that refugee status. And if not, they're staying in America because Judge Kelly says so. I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Take a minute, subscribe to Legal AF, the YouTube channel, as we continue to build our audience there. And Legal AF Substack, where I'm posting for members all of these filings, like Judge Kelly's order and the children and families memo, which looks like it's violating federal judges' orders.

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