There was no plan. There never was a plan. There ever was only cruelty, and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, and his bone-deep dislike for anyone browner than himself—and Sessions is so white he has no shadow. They put together a "hardline" immigration policy made up of loose bits of algae from the president*'s spongy gray matter with no plans on how to implement it at all, let alone any contingency plan if something were to go awry. And something was bound to go awry, because this plan was based solely on cruelty by a president* who knows nothing about anything.

And thus, on Thursday, did a federal judge named Emmet Sullivan—and a fine Fenian name it is—tell an airplane to turn the fck around before he clapped JeffBo in irons. From The Washington Post:

"This is pretty outrageous,” U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said after being told about the removal. “That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?...I’m not happy about this at all...This is not acceptable.” The woman, known in court papers as Carmen, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union. It challenges a recent policy change by the Justice Department that aims to expedite the removal of asylum seekers who fail to prove their cases and excludes domestic and gang violence as justifications for granting asylum in the United States.

Win McNamee Getty Images

Attorneys for the civil rights organization and the Justice Department had agreed to delay removal proceedings for Carmen and her child until 11:59 p.m. Thursday so they could argue the matter in court. But lead ACLU attorney Jennifer Chang Newell, who was participating in the court hearing via phone from her office in California, received an email during the hearing that said the mother and daughter were being deported.

Spiriting someone off to El Salvador while her case is still in court? How in the name of god is this not kidnapping?

After being informed of the situation, Sullivan granted the ACLU’s request to delay deportations for Carmen and the other plaintiffs until the lawsuit is decided, and ordered the government to “turn the plane around.” Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni said he had not been told the deportation was happening that morning and could not confirm the whereabouts of Carmen and her daughter.

Attorney Reuveni better hope that's true, because Judge Sullivan isn't playing here.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, which implements deportations, did not respond to questions about why Carmen and her daughter were removed from the country. “In compliance with the court’s order, upon arrival in El Salvador, the plaintiffs did not disembark and were promptly returned to the United States,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said Thursday evening.

This must have been absolutely terrifying—the immigration equivalent of taking a prisoner out of his cell and dry-firing a pistol at the back of his head, especially considering the essential facts of the case.

Carmen fled El Salvador with her daughter in June, according to court records, fearing they would be killed by gang members who had demanded she pay them each month or suffer consequences. Several co-workers at the factory where Carmen worked had been murdered, and her husband is also abusive, the records state.

This is exactly why the Irish came here during the Famine and, later, during the Troubles. It's why so many Germans came here after the revolution of 1848, and why so many Russian Jews came here after each new pogrom. The country's record in such matters is not unspotted, but, by and large, it has taken seriously the notion that those fleeing political oppression are welcome here.

John Moore Getty Images

Ah, but Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III knows so much better.

In June, Sessions vacated a 2016 Board of Immigration Appeals court case that granted asylum to an abused woman from El Salvador. As part of that decision, Sessions said gang and domestic violence in most cases would no longer be grounds for receiving asylum. “The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim,” Sessions wrote at the time.

The "mere fact." God, what an elfin monster the man is. Judge Emmet Sullivan deserves a crack at him.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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