Department of Homeland Security: Trump appointee grilled in court about shuttering offices tasked with civil rights oversight
A federal judge said that she had concerns about being 'hoodwinked' by plans put forward in her courtroom Monday by a Trump appointee to rebuild three offices focused on civil rights oversight within the Department of Homeland Security that were eviscerated with mass layoffs set to take effect this week.
US District Judge Ana Reyes said that she found the three-plus hours of testimony from the appointee, US Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman Ronald Sartini, to be 'credible.'
The judge believed he was working in 'good faith' to come up with proposals for restaffing his office and the two others offices in the case before her, and that if those plans came to quick fruition, there would not be irreparable harm that would justify a court's intervention.
The administration's gutting of those offices comes as President Donald Trump is pushing – and at times overstepping – the law in his efforts to quickly fulfill his campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants.
Reyes also said that a 'cynical view' of the state of play in the legal challenge was that the administration did not actually intend to restore those offices to their congressionally mandated functions, because their work might slow Trump's mass deportation agenda. She raised the possibility that Sartini's testimony was 'window dressing for the court' to head off the legal case, brought by advocacy groups that work on civil rights issues on behalf of migrants and are challenging the dismantling of those offices.
Sartini, who spent 16 years in various career positions within the federal government before his May appointment as CIS ombudsman, told the judge he believed DHS leadership when it told him that the offices would be up and running again. Legal arguments in the case will continue on Tuesday.
More than 300 total employees at the CIS ombudsman office, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman were put on administrative leave on March 21, in terminations that will take effect on Friday. Just a handful people – all at the executive level – are currently working across the three offices, Sartini testified Monday. He acknowledged that, particularly at the two offices he does not lead, statutorily mandated work is not being performed.
Sartini, however, defended the monthslong shutdown in work that is required by Congress. There was 'nothing' in law 'to preclude' a new administration from 'taking a beat,' he said, to decide whether there was a better way for those offices to operate.
Days before its workforce was put on leave, the Office of Civil Rights and Liberties opened an investigation into the controversial arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in detention while a separate court reviews the constitutionality of the administration's efforts to deport him.
The challengers in the case before Reyes – the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation, Urban Justice, and the Southern Border Communities Coalition – have put forward examples of complaints they've filed with the oversight offices alleging sexual assault, medical neglect, abuse of force and other alleged civil rights violations by DHS officials.
The complaints prompted investigations that apparently halted with the rollout of the mass terminations, according to the court filings, or were filed around the time of the closures, including a complaint alleging due process violations with the administration's deportation of a 10-year-old citizen suffering brain cancer with her undocumented parents.
Sartini was pressed Monday about statements made by the administration in March – including in the layoff notices that went out to employees – that those oversight offices were being dissolved entirely. Though he has since been told internally that the administration intended to reopen those offices, Sartini said he was not aware of DHS communicating that change of plans to the public, stakeholders or even the fired employees.
He said, that before his formal appointment as CIS ombudsman, he was brought on around the time of the March 21 layoffs to review what duties those offices should be carrying out going forward.
'These offices were not the model of efficiency,' Sartini said, testifying that, before the layoffs, there was mismanagement, dysfunction and a bloated operation that duplicated work that was being done elsewhere in the agency.
Sartini is prepared to present to DHS leadership a proposal for rebuilding the offices with new hires, detailees and contractors. But, he said, it would be up to leadership whether his ideas were put into action and there was no meeting scheduled yet for leadership to hear his recommendations.
Reyes quizzed the official on how quickly the work could restart once his plans were presented and approved. She also asked a DHS lawyer present at the proceedings to call Sartini's point of contact in leadership mid-hearing to get a date on the books for such a meeting to happen. The lawyer later told Reyes that the leadership official, DHS acting general counsel Joseph Mazzara, was about to get on plane, and so the administration will be filing a response to the judge's query on Tuesday morning, ahead of more arguments on the legal issues in the case.
See Full Web Article
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
a few seconds ago
- New York Times
Noem's Spending Rule Causes Delays at Homeland Security Dept.
The new rule came down from Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in June — a decree that she would crack down on wasteful spending by personally approving any expense over $100,000. But Ms. Noem has been slow to sign off on new spending requests, including hundreds of projects that officials have deemed critical to protecting national security and advancing President Trump's immigration agenda, according to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times. As of July 30, the most recent date reflected in most of the documents, at least 530 spending requests were awaiting Ms. Noem's approval, while more than 1,500 other spending requests were awaiting review by lower-level officials before they could land on her desk, according to the documents. And while Ms. Noem said in a June memo that her reviews of the requests could take five days, in many cases they are taking weeks, the documents show. A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said that as of Monday, Ms. Noem did 'not have a single contract on her desk awaiting signature' — a statement that could not be independently verified. But what is clear, from documents and interviews with people briefed on the spending requests, is that the bottleneck in the approval process has halted some operations while threatening further disruptions across the sprawling department, which includes more than a dozen agencies and divisions focused on issues as varied as immigration enforcement, airport security and disaster response. At the Transportation Security Administration, for example, a contract for airport screening equipment that helps detect fake passports expired in early July while awaiting approval. A lapse in the contract 'increases the likelihood of bad actors boarding aircraft using fraudulent identification,' T.S.A. officials wrote in the internal documents. 'Failure to award this contract action will significantly impact TSA's ability to monitor and analyze vulnerabilities across the agency's field information systems. … The most affected system will be TSA's Credential Authentication Technology which checks passenger identification and Secure Flight vetting status. During an outage, Secure Flight data cannot be fed to the system, thereby requiring Transportation Security Officers to use less secure, manual methods for verifying passenger identification. This increases the likelihood of bad actors boarding aircraft using fraudulent identification and severely impacts passenger throughput at checkpoints.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
a few seconds ago
- New York Times
U.S. Kills Islamic State Operative in Rare Raid in Syria
U.S. military forces conducted a rare ground raid in Syria this week, killing a senior Islamic State financier, the Pentagon's Central Command said on Thursday. It was the second such raid in less than a month. In a statement, Central Command said that U.S. commandos killed the Islamic State operative, whom they did not identify, on Tuesday. The operative planned attacks in Syria and Iraq, and had relationships throughout the Islamic State network in the region, the statement said. Central Command provided few details on the ground operation or where in Syria it happened. But military counterterrorism raids — as opposed to airstrikes — have typically involved helicopter-borne Special Operations commandos, often supported by attack planes and drones. Such ground operations are riskier than drone strikes because they put troops in harm's way. They often mean that the target is particularly important and likely to be near civilians to try to ward off an air attack. And the location of the raid may contain sensitive information — like computer hard drives, cellphones and other data — that could help counterterrorism forces plan future raids. 'We will continue to pursue ISIS terrorists with unwavering determination, throughout the region,' Adm. Brad Cooper, who this month took over as head of Central Command, said in the statement. 'Together with our partners and allies, Centcom remains steadfast in our commitment of ensuring the lasting defeat of ISIS and the protection of the U.S. homeland.' A U.S. military official said on Thursday there were no American casualties in the mission. In late July, U.S. military forces conducted a raid in northwestern Syria, killing a senior Islamic State leader, Dhiya' Zawba Muslih al-Hardani, and his two adult sons in the Aleppo area. The raids come just weeks after President Trump signed an executive order in late June that lifted most of the U.S. economic sanctions on Syria, tightening his embrace of the country's new government despite concerns about its leaders' past ties to Al Qaeda. The move delivered on a surprise announcement by Mr. Trump in May during a trip to the Middle East. At a stop in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump met with President Ahmed al-Shara of Syria, who assumed power in December after his fighters deposed the longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Trump described Mr. al-Shara as 'young, attractive' and 'tough,' and said Syria deserved 'a chance' to rebuild after a devastating civil war that began in March 2011. Mr. al-Shara previously led a rebel group designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
Fox News
11 minutes ago
- Fox News
ICE chief vows to ‘flood' Boston with agents after Dem mayor vows to resist
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons vowed to "flood" Boston with agents after Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu doubled down on her pledge to uphold the city's sanctuary policies and resist the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. Speaking on the local radio program "The Howie Carr Show," Lyons responded to Wu by saying, "Now you're going to see more ICE agents come to Boston to make sure that we take these public safety threats out that she wants to let go back into the communities." He pointed to the Trump administration's "Operation Patriot," which surged federal agents in the Boston area in March and yielded over a thousand arrests. "We are going to keep doing it in Boston," he said. "We're going to continue to do our mission. We're going to keep making Boston safe as she's failing to do with these sanctuary city policies." Pressed on whether ICE will surge agents to the Boston area, similar to how agents are currently in Washington, D.C., Lyons responded, "100 percent you will see a larger ICE presence." "We're definitely going to, as you've heard the saying, flood the zone, especially in sanctuary jurisdictions," he went on. "And obviously Boston and Massachusetts decided that they wanted to stay sanctuaries and sanctuary does not mean safer streets it means more criminal aliens out and about in neighborhoods." Lyons pointed out that during Operation Patriot, ICE pursued "targeted enforcement operations" of criminal aliens released by the city of Boston and Massachusetts. Operation Patriot resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,500 illegal immigrants, including murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and child sex predators. Sources at ICE told Fox News that 790 of those arrested had criminal convictions or charges, and 277 had final removal or deportation orders. The sources said that all the targeted criminals were roaming the streets of Massachusetts cities freely before being apprehended. The operation ran throughout May and involved ICE teams from other states in the Northeast, as well as authorities from the FBI, DEA, and ATF. Speaking on Wednesday, Lyons said, "There's so many of these criminal aliens that keep getting released to go out and commit more crimes that local law enforcement have to deal with and we can take that, you know, violent criminal illegal alien instantly out of the neighborhood." This follows U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi setting a deadline of Tuesday for sanctuary jurisdictions to drop their policies that block cooperation with federal authorities. Speaking on Fox Business, Bondi said she sent letters to 32 mayors and seven governors, "telling them you better comply or you're next." Bondi highlighted a letter she sent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom in which she warned that "individuals operating under the color of law, using their official position to obstruct federal immigration enforcement efforts and facilitating or inducing illegal immigration may be subject to criminal charges." The letter, shared on social media, said cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including on immigration enforcement, "is vital to enforce federal law and protect national security." Wu publicly rejected Bondi's demands during a press conference, calling the ultimatum a political stunt. "Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration's failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law," Wu said Tuesday. "This is our city. This is our country, and I'm so proud and grateful to show the world who our community is here in Boston and what we're made of." In response to Lyons' comments, Wu's office shared a statement from the mayor who was answering another reporter's question. Wu reiterated, "In Boston, we comply and follow all of the laws, city, state and federal. And we will not back down from communities that have made us the safest major city in the country. "This is a beautiful, diverse, incredible city and I have said it now very directly this administration needs to stop attacking cities to hide their own failures," she added.
