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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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That last line is, frankly, insane to me given the circumstances. "Yea we knew at the time we deported the guy to El Salvador that it was illegal for us to do it, but it was in good faith!" What is the government's response to having illegally deported someone? Too bad! The government makes a few arguments but here I want to zoom in on a particular one: redressability. Ordinarily in order for a U.S. Federal court to have jurisdiction to hear a case the Plaintiff (that would be Abrego-Garcia, his wife, and his 5 year old son in this case) bears the burden of establishing that an order of the court would redress their claimed injury. This cannot be met here, according to the government, in part because they no longer have custody of Abrego-Garcia and so there is no order the Court can issue as to the United States Government that will reddress their injury. The appropriate entity to be enjoined is the government of El Salvador, over which a U.S. federal court obviously has no jurisdiction.

It's possible in a 2016-2020 Trump Admin, this is an argument I would have cared about. But I literally just lived through an administration that forced me to take an experimental vaccine. Luckily my only side effect (so far) is permanent tinnitus. But the manufacturer is shielded from liability, and so is the government which forced it on me. I mean I guess the supreme court struck down that mandate... but they did so after the deadline by which I would have immediately lost my job, so thanks for nothing. I wouldn't mind some redress. What's my inability to fall asleep because of the ringing in my ears worth?

We just lived through an illegal eviction moratorium. After the Supreme Court decided it was illegal, were any of the people harmed by that offered any compensation? Were the landlords compensated for being forced to house squaters? Or did Blackrock roll up their foreclosed homes?

What about all these federal programs to relocate, house and feed migrants of questionable immigration status, and all the crime and destruction of institutions it caused? Do any of the communities that had hoards of barbarians air dropped on them by the feds get any sort of redress? What about the victims of unquestionably illegal immigrants? People who lost family or were otherwise horribly victimized because the Biden administration just ignored immigration law? Where were all these arguments about "If congress passes a law funding blah blah blah the executive must enforce those laws"? Where were the nationwide injunctions, or the concerns about redress for the victims of illegal alien crime? How was it not a constitutional crisis that uncounted millions of illegal and questionably legal aliens were allowed to invade over 4 years?

This might be bad. But I just can't possibly be made to care. I don't want to hear about "redress" given the profound damage the last administration did completely scot-free. Until I see Fauci behind bars, I'm happy letting ICE run completely amok and plead "qualified immunity" to all of it. Let Trump give them all preemptive pardons. Have them show up at people's doors with those instead of warrants. I don't care anymore. I already saw from 2020-2024 that the law doesn't matter. I'm certainly not going to let arguments about principle matter to me now. This is power politics now baby.

Biden flew in hundreds of thousands of illegals and somehow the courts found that nobody had standing to challenge it.

What case was this?

How did the CHNV parole programs constitute the Biden administration flying in hundreds of thousands of illegals?

Not OP, but perhaps United States v. Texas

In 2021, after President Biden took office, the Department of Homeland Security issued new Guidelines for immigration enforcement. The Guidelines prioritize the arrest and removal from the United States of noncitizens who are suspected terrorists or dangerous criminals, or who have unlawfully entered the country only recently, for example. Texas and Louisiana sued the Department of Homeland Security. According to those States, the Department’s new Guidelines violate federal statutes that purportedly require the Department to arrest more criminal noncitizens pending their removal. The States essentially want the Federal Judiciary to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policy so as to make more arrests. But this Court has long held “that a citizen lacks standing to contest the policies of the prosecuting authority when he himself is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution.” Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973). Consistent with that fundamental Article III principle, we conclude that the States lack Article III standing to bring this suit.