WOOT!! COURT HALTS CONVERSION OF WAREHOUSE TO ICE DETENTION FACILITY!
Buried among all of the other things going on, I found this gem! DHS has acquired a warehouse property in Maryland with the intention of turning it into an ICE detention facility. And the state of Maryland sued to stop it. And the Court said “Not so fast, ICE”, and *ordered* that DHS *stop* the work of converting that facility (let alone opening it), until the Court could be fully briefed on the issues.
And DHS complied.
(Notes from the Front members, I’m including the Court’s TRO, DHS’s notice of compliance, then Maryland’s request to turn the TRO into a preliminary injunction (“PI”) and then the Court’s response to that.)
The initial order from the Court was a 14-day TRO. While both parties were figuring out briefing schedules the State of Maryland let the Court know that it would be filing a request for a preliminary injunction (to give them some breathing room rather than having to pull everything together before the TRO expired in 14 days). Then they did file it. And on that same day the Court issued *another* order, both approving the briefing schedule *and* saying, in essence, “I’m going to extend the TRO until I can issue an order on the request for the preliminary injunction.”
This is notable for a couple of reasons:
1. For everyone who is upset about ICE trying to open massive facilities around the county (and that includes me), the Courts are taking notice (at least when it’s properly brought to their attention in a properly filed lawsuit); and
2. The Court went out of its way to extend the TRO past the 14 days, saying, and quoting a precedent case, also out of Maryland, “Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b)(2), for good cause the Court may extend a TRO for a “like period” as its initial duration, so long as its reasons for the extension are entered in the record. “Although there is little case law on what constitutes ‘good cause,’ ‘a showing that the grounds for originally granting the [TRO] continue to exist’ is sufficient, and courts have also found ‘good cause’ where more time is needed fully to consider the parties’ arguments and motions or ‘where the moving party need[s] additional time to prepare and present its preliminary injunction.”
Which is legalese for “DHS, you’re my b*tch until I say we’re done.”
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