Judge releases detained Venezuelan couple with temporary protected status: “If this was a criminal case. … I’d throw you out of my chambers.”

A Bluesky thread with highlights of the transcript is here https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3llhrkrqluc2z

Suffice to say, the judge is extremely angry with ICE in this hearing

>Judge Brinkema asked the government what their position was; do they still have TPS, and if so, how are they being held?

>The government said it was their position that they did still have TPS — a confusing answer given what DHS tried to do — then said they were being held as public safety threats.

>After the DOJ attorney argues that Cesar and Norelia are public safety threats, things start to get spicy.

>Judge Brinkema asks “Are you able, as a member of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, to actually stand before this court and tell me that there is any genuine evidence” that they’re a threat.

>A bit taken aback, the DOJ attorney responds… and then immediately puts his foot in his mouth, briefly saying that Norelia was an “admitted member” of Tren de Aragua.

>She is not. A decade earlier she was married to someone who is allegedly a member.

>Brinkema pounces. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.”

>After Brinkema asks whether simply having previously been married to a gang member makes someone an “affiliate”, the DOJ responds with … an affidavit from someone inside ICE apparently saying she’s affiliated with the gang.

>Brinkema unloads on DOJ: It’s “the sorriest statement I’ve ever seen.”

>Brinkema then goes over the MANY problems with the affidavit. The big ones are:

1. It is pure hearsay.
2. The claims within it are COMPLETELY ABSURD. It accuses her of being a “senior member” of the gang seemingly based only on having been married to a TdA member she divorced a decade earlier!

>Brinkema’s response to ICE’s affidavit trying to prove TdA membership.

>”This is a terrible, terrible affidavit. If this were before me in a criminal case and you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I’d throw you out of my chambers.”

>At the end of the rant, he grants the habeas petition!