Civil rights group files first lawsuit against DeSantis over ‘illegal’ migrant flights

“The 35-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Boston offers one of the most detailed accounts yet of how roughly 50 migrants found themselves on two planes that unexpectedly landed in Martha’s Vineyard last week, and trauma their new lawyers say they’ve suffered from their ordeal and from being thrust into the center of the national debate over immigration.

The plaintiffs include three Venezuelan migrants who boarded the planes to Martha’s Vineyard along with their family members as well as Alianza Americas, a Chicago-based advocacy group for Latino immigrant communities.

The complaint alleges that people working for DeSantis were “trolling streets outside of a migrant shelter in Texas and other similar locales, pretending to be good Samaritans offering humanitarian assistance,” including $10 McDonalds gift cards and free hotels while making “false promises and false representations” of employment, housing and educational opportunities awaiting the migrants in either Boston or Washington, D.C.

They were also allegedly told they would receive assistance with their immigration proceedings at their final destination and were “intentionally sequestered” before their departure from Texas “so they could not discuss the arrangement” and so that the migrants “would be less likely to leave or change their minds.”

Instead, the migrants were flown to Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, where “no one” on the island or “anywhere in Massachusetts” knew they were coming. They were given pamphlets “lifting language” from the state’s Refugee Resettlement Program — which the lawsuit argues none of the migrants are eligible for. And the people who recruited the migrants for the flights were “unreachable by phone” after they landed in Massachusetts.

“These immigrants, who are pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the United States, experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country,” the plaintiffs argue. “Defendants manipulated them, stripped them of their dignity, deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection under law, and impermissibly interfered with the federal government’s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda.””

“DeSantis has continued to defend his actions, claiming last week that the migrants voluntarily boarded the flights and weren’t coerced. He has argued that Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved $12 million to transport migrants out of the state, though Democrats have claimed the flights are improper uses of the allocated funds.”

SCOTUS Says You Can’t Sue the Cops for Violating Your Miranda Rights

“The Supreme Court ruled..that if a police officer fails to inform you of your right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination when you’re suspected of a crime, you can’t sue under federal law as a violation of your civil rights.

To be clear, the Court isn’t overturning Miranda v. Arizona, the 1966 Supreme Court ruling that determined that it’s a violation of a suspect’s Fifth Amendment rights for police to interrogate him or her about a crime without informing them they have the right to remain silent and the right to request an attorney. But what the Court ruled today is that if and when this right is violated, people can’t turn to Section 1983 of the U.S. code and file a civil action lawsuit against the police officer or law enforcement agency and seek redress or damages.”

“Essentially, Alito’s opinion says that the purpose of Miranda is to serve as a safeguard against compelled self-incrimination by police or prosecutors. It was not intended to establish that it was inherently a Fifth Amendment violation if somebody voluntarily confesses or self-incriminates himself or herself prior to or absent of a Miranda warning.”

“Alito concludes that because a violation of Miranda is not automatically a violation of the Fifth Amendment, there is no justification to permit a civil rights lawsuit. The opinion reverses a judgment in Tekoh’s favor and remands it back to the lower courts to revisit.

The dissent is written by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan observes the obvious in her dissent, that this ruling will make it harder for defendants to pursue legal remedies when their rights are violated”

“the Supreme Court recognizes that these constitutional rights exist, but by shielding officers from liability for violating these rights, the Court undermines the necessary tools to make sure police take them seriously.”

SCOTUS Just Made It Even Harder To Sue an Abusive Federal Agent

“A series of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have made it practically impossible to sue a federal officer over an alleged constitutional rights violation. In a 6-3 ruling released today, the Court doubled down on this regrettable trend.

The case is Egbert v. Boule. At issue were the actions of a border patrol agent who sought to question one of the guests at a Washington state bed-and-breakfast about the guest’s immigration status. When owner Robert Boule told the agent, Erik Egbert, to leave his property, Egbert allegedly assaulted Boule. Then, when Boule complained about the alleged assault to the agent’s superiors, Egbert allegedly retaliated by asking the IRS to investigate Boule, who was audited. Boule sued Egbert for violating his Fourth Amendment rights (the assault) and his First Amendment rights (the retaliation against Boule’s complaint).

In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971), the Supreme Court allowed federal officers to be sued in federal court for alleged Fourth Amendment violations. Unfortunately, the Court has since narrowed Bivens to point of practically overruling it. Today’s decision in Egbert v. Boule has shriveled Bivens even further.

“The Court of Appeals permitted not one, but two constitutional damages actions to proceed against a U.S. Border Patrol agent,” complained the majority opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas. “Because our cases have made clear that, in all but the most unusual circumstances, prescribing a cause of action is a job for Congress, not the courts, we reverse.” Thomas’ opinion was joined in full by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Writing in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that Thomas’ decision was plainly at odds with Bivens. “Boule’s Fourth Amendment claim does not arise in a new context,” she wrote, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. “Bivens itself involved a U.S. citizen bringing a Fourth Amendment claim against individual, rank-and-file federal law enforcement officers who allegedly violated his constitutional rights within the United States by entering his property without a warrant and using excessive force. Those are precisely the facts of Boule’s complaint.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch agreed with Sotomayor about that. “The plaintiff is an American citizen who argues that a federal law enforcement officer violated the Fourth Amendment in searching the curtilage of his home. Candidly, I struggle to see how this set of facts differs meaningfully from those in Bivens itself.” Still, Gorsuch concurred with Thomas, arguing that the officer should win this case because Bivens should be overruled outright.

The upshot [the] ruling is that federal officers, who already enjoy extraordinary protections against being sued over alleged rights violations, are now more untouchable than ever.”

Town Official Lies, Files Lawsuit When Someone Calls Him a Liar

“The village of Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, is still dealing with the fallout of the infamous Foxconn deal the state struck in 2017. Former Governor Scott Walker promised the Taiwan-based tech giant $3 billion in state subsidies in exchange for a state-of-the-art factory to be built in Mount Pleasant, and said that the deal would generate 13,000 high-paying jobs.
Four years later, the factory was nowhere near completion, and the company had created merely 1,400 jobs. The state rescinded most of the subsidies, but the Mount Pleasant Village Board, the local governing body, had already authorized bulldozing dozens of homes, including via eminent domain, designating more than four square miles “blighted” to make the land even easier to seize from private owners. It also took on hundreds of millions in debt, leading to the town’s credit rating being downgraded.”