I would agree if one of those 55% had an immigration issue it could be HN related. But you can find stats like that to support literally anything belonging on HN.
In such cases in the U.S., where judicial orders are not heeded, what are the consequences for the executive (and the agencies it controls) and what are the remedies practically available (something that can be put into action) for the judiciary for contempt of court?
To what extent can the executive get away with disobeying judicial orders (without filing appeals)?
If the executive branch is ignoring court orders, the constitution is de facto suspended. It’s in the ‘constitutional crisis’ phase when they’re threatening to ignore the courts. When they’re actually doing it, there is no longer a working constitution.
The remedies are to pray that the US Marshals don’t break their oath to the constitution and are willing to arrest their bosses for contempt of court when the courts order it.
If the leaders of the DOJ commit federal crimes do they just get a pass? Of course not. The marshals must do their jobs and arrest people the courts lawfully order them to, regardless of their title. That’s not a coup, that’s the constitution working normally.
The coup already happened when the executive usurped the judicial branch’s authority.
Something I’ve noticed is that a surprising (to me) number of people I generally think of as “smart” say things like that.
“You can’t arrest your boss” or “if the President is in charge of the executive, why can’t he decide these things?”
And it continues to surprise me. I take these queries in good faith with respect to the people in my life that I know who respond in this way.
But it leaves me wondering how others think the world works. Do people want to live in a world where one branch has unchecked power and may disregard with impunity the checks and balances in our government?
Why shouldn’t and why can’t a rogue President be contained by lawful means? Why shouldn’t the Marshal’s be able to arrest someone at the direction of the court? That’s how it works for everyone else.
It’s by no means an unsettled question as to whether Presidents are accountable to the law and Constitution. They are. Full stop.
Is it just that having a President that actively ignores and breaks laws in plain sight is just so new? How long do we wait for the novelty to wear off?
Of course the functioning of all of this is predicated upon good faith and the absence of an almost complete takeover of the system by bootlickers.
Especially if these are people in your own life instead of randoms on the Internet, it's probably worth revisiting this. A great many people I know in my life saying things like this were spinning a very different yarn when it was Obama, the ACA or his executive orders. Or Biden doing... Well anything. In other words it's not good faith. It's a post-facto rationalization to justify whatever Trump is doing.
It's of course harder to do this exercise for a random stranger on the Internet. It's always possible this person was arguing the same for other Presidents. But I'd bet dollars to donuts few were.
Disagree. The executive disregarding the constitution (judicial oversight) is a coup. Arresting the offenders is bringing the government back into constitutional order. Seems the opposite of a coup to me.
The US Marshalls are part of the Department of Justice, so in a criminal contempt case, the DOJ would be effectively arresting itself. Also, the President can pardon anyone of any federal crime for any reason without any possibility of judicial review. So criminal remedies seem ineffective.
As for fines - it looks like they're capped at $1000, and depending on the circumstances, the government might just be paying that fine to itself. So that doesn't seem effective either.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/402
Congress is intended to be able to enforce via impeachment, but if congress declines to impeach, there's really no consequences for the executive branch.
The only officials who matter here are congressmen, and there's no provision in the US Constitution that would allow for a recall. The only legal mechanism for removal is expulsion, which must be voted on by the rest of Congress, so...
Besides... even where recalls are allowed, it's only by their own district. The Congressmen were just elected, and their constituents generally approve of this. A recall effort would certainly fail.
In theory they could be expelled by Congress itself. But obviously that's not going to happen.
You have more faith in them than I do. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2A crowd rise up, in a year or two, to defend America's Lord and Savior Trump from leftist thugs.
Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622) with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on February 1, 2025.
"Each day [..] shall not constitute a calendar day"
An executive with a cowered majority can get away with almost anything when they can issue emergency orders and set aside an appeal and review process intended to temper such orders.
It's a triumph of creative lawyering over overt disobeying of judicial orders.
FDR threatened to pack the court with judges sympathetic to his policies. The Supreme Court Court backed down and ruled, in essence, the New Deal legal. In theory a court can issue arrest warrants but that isn’t going to happen with Trump. SCOTUS has already ruled that Presidents are largely immune to arrest and the President can pardon whomever he wants. Thus, effectively there is no legal mechanism for enforcement.
Much of the American system relies on established political norms for governance. Pretty much all of these norms are being gutted. No one knows what the long term impact will be but I believe the republic as we knew it is dead.
> Judges order means nothing if the executive branch decides not to enforce it and the legislature won't hold the executive accountable.
This administration will not act in good faith -- it will cite and use laws that it agrees with to compel action and when faced with anything not aligned with its goals will simply ignore it.
While there is resistance, it's going to be too little, too late. There's so many horrible aspects about this, but at the top is the fact that there's a sizable amount of the population which likes this. My faith in humanity is just about gone.
Yeah, I’ll never suffer another Republican speaking about “law and order” or upholding the Constitution again when they’ve so clearly and so reliably failed to do so.
Cafeteria constitutionalists -- they take the parts they like and dismiss the rest.
The other thing about "those people" and the Constitution is that they like to play the "originalism" game. I'm guessing theres a really high correlation between those folk and those that believe the bible is the literal word of god (i.e., those of an authoritarian bent).
Jefferson expected it to be molded by future generations (as it should). Case in point: that's why amendments exist. The current Republican party has made no secret they'd be happy to roll it all back to just the original doc, to make america great again by annointing white men as above all.
It is toothless, but you need a lot of stars to align for this to work out. I mean, all it takes is a few people with a head on their shoulders and a commitment to the constitution to stop this.
This has been a lot of wealthy individuals and politicians wet dream for 200 years now. The fact that it's even coming to fruition at all points to how long, arduous, and complex the orchestration must have been. I mean, when did this really begin?
CBP detained Prof. Rasha Alawieh upon her return from Lebanon to the Boston Logan airport, and deported her after 36 hours of detention. Usually, CBP has broader powers at the border. So many people were deported from the US airports, despite having valid Visas; CBP folks can take ur phone and laptop and rummage through it, then deport folks for flimsy reasons.
The legal system is a single point of failure here without any apparent teeth. The only thing that makes sense is to start holding the underlings in contempt
Generally, the Justice Department would side with the Courts, even if the President didn't. The idea that the President would interfere in the workings of the department to that degree is a new failure point.
Technically, impeachment and removal is another mechanism that would have to fail, but that one failed long ago. The bar is set very high and the process has never been completed.
So "searching around" where? On some 4chan board with unverifiable conjecture perhaps? Maybe on Twitter, home of factual information? Please, I would LOVE to hear that there is some kind of proof this person was actually a legitimate concern to national security or something. I'm just afraid I'm going to find out that no, it's just that our government has gone to hell, and I should be worried myself, a naturalized citizen with a passport but not born American, that I can somehow have my citizenship revoked because I think the president is a buffoon.
What exactly is not reflective of the facts? The court issued a standard order to the government to provide 48 hours notice before deporting her. The government ignored that order. You can see the docket here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741237/chehab-v-noem/
"Immigration officials did not receive this order before Alawieh was sent on a plane to Paris, according to the Boston Globe."
The Boston globe link was behind a paywall, unfortunately.
I don't mean to quibble inordinately, but there's probably enough bad here to stick to the lede (skilled worker deported without cause) and not distractions
EDIT: OK I see the confusion. The Globe article from Friday quotes the organ program medical director as saying the court order "apparently" didn't arrive in time. But over the weekend, her lawyers provided a detailed timeline to the court saying that they provided the order to CBP at Logan Airport before the plane took off. So I think the claim you're referencing here is just outdated and incomplete.
https://archive.is/IgnTA
"There is a shortage of American doctors working in Dr. Alawieh’s area of specialty, transplant nephrology. ... Her patients included individuals awaiting transplants and those dealing with the complex conditions that can occur after a transplant"
Tbf, what made the USA great (in addition to vast amounts of natural resources, peaceful neighbors, and technological dominance over the indigenous) was turning skilled foreign workers into skilled local workers
Jesus Christ. I'm pro foreign workers. I was one myself. My point is that these people keep saying they want skilled workers, and then bs like this story happens, proving that their argument about wanting skilled workers is just an excuse. They're really just against foreign workers.
The economics of a reverse brain drain are well known and their upside is clear.
Please don't spike this as political. If U.S. democracy breaks down, as this event portends, it will absolutely have an effect on startups.
Reading some of the comments on the latest post from YC's immigration lawyer felt like a chilling sign of times to come.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43363056
Gary's promised a bright future after Juche.
All in on tariffs and nativism.
We are told our glorious future awaits.
I'd tell him, ye reap what ye sow.
But truth is, I'm the sucker.
Same people I want a check from are the ones pulling up the ladders behind them in some sort of bizarre LARP.
And he could give two shits about what questions one of his companies lawyers has to answer.
Too late. It's been flagged.
It's unfortunately political to its core, but it's absolutely relevant to all of our lives.
This has absolutely nothing to do with technology, it is purely political, and should not be here.
In my opinion, nearly all stories regarding US immigration are related to technology due to one inconvenient fact:
> 55% Of America’s Billion-Dollar Startups Have An Immigrant Founder
https://www.fosterglobal.com/blog/55-of-americas-billion-dol...
I would agree if one of those 55% had an immigration issue it could be HN related. But you can find stats like that to support literally anything belonging on HN.
In such cases in the U.S., where judicial orders are not heeded, what are the consequences for the executive (and the agencies it controls) and what are the remedies practically available (something that can be put into action) for the judiciary for contempt of court?
To what extent can the executive get away with disobeying judicial orders (without filing appeals)?
If the executive branch is ignoring court orders, the constitution is de facto suspended. It’s in the ‘constitutional crisis’ phase when they’re threatening to ignore the courts. When they’re actually doing it, there is no longer a working constitution.
The remedies are to pray that the US Marshals don’t break their oath to the constitution and are willing to arrest their bosses for contempt of court when the courts order it.
The problem is you can't just arrest your bosses. That would be a military coup.
If the leaders of the DOJ commit federal crimes do they just get a pass? Of course not. The marshals must do their jobs and arrest people the courts lawfully order them to, regardless of their title. That’s not a coup, that’s the constitution working normally.
The coup already happened when the executive usurped the judicial branch’s authority.
Something I’ve noticed is that a surprising (to me) number of people I generally think of as “smart” say things like that.
“You can’t arrest your boss” or “if the President is in charge of the executive, why can’t he decide these things?”
And it continues to surprise me. I take these queries in good faith with respect to the people in my life that I know who respond in this way.
But it leaves me wondering how others think the world works. Do people want to live in a world where one branch has unchecked power and may disregard with impunity the checks and balances in our government?
Why shouldn’t and why can’t a rogue President be contained by lawful means? Why shouldn’t the Marshal’s be able to arrest someone at the direction of the court? That’s how it works for everyone else.
It’s by no means an unsettled question as to whether Presidents are accountable to the law and Constitution. They are. Full stop.
Is it just that having a President that actively ignores and breaks laws in plain sight is just so new? How long do we wait for the novelty to wear off?
Of course the functioning of all of this is predicated upon good faith and the absence of an almost complete takeover of the system by bootlickers.
> I take these queries in good faith
Especially if these are people in your own life instead of randoms on the Internet, it's probably worth revisiting this. A great many people I know in my life saying things like this were spinning a very different yarn when it was Obama, the ACA or his executive orders. Or Biden doing... Well anything. In other words it's not good faith. It's a post-facto rationalization to justify whatever Trump is doing.
It's of course harder to do this exercise for a random stranger on the Internet. It's always possible this person was arguing the same for other Presidents. But I'd bet dollars to donuts few were.
Disagree. The executive disregarding the constitution (judicial oversight) is a coup. Arresting the offenders is bringing the government back into constitutional order. Seems the opposite of a coup to me.
Guess who the boss of the US Marshals is? Former Trump attorney and 2020 election denier Pam Bondi. Good luck with that.
The US Marshalls are part of the Department of Justice, so in a criminal contempt case, the DOJ would be effectively arresting itself. Also, the President can pardon anyone of any federal crime for any reason without any possibility of judicial review. So criminal remedies seem ineffective.
As for fines - it looks like they're capped at $1000, and depending on the circumstances, the government might just be paying that fine to itself. So that doesn't seem effective either. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/402
Congress is intended to be able to enforce via impeachment, but if congress declines to impeach, there's really no consequences for the executive branch.
Can we recall the elected officials who are shirking their duty to impeach an executive who is behaving unlawfully?
The only officials who matter here are congressmen, and there's no provision in the US Constitution that would allow for a recall. The only legal mechanism for removal is expulsion, which must be voted on by the rest of Congress, so...
No, we can't. It's unconstitutional.
Besides... even where recalls are allowed, it's only by their own district. The Congressmen were just elected, and their constituents generally approve of this. A recall effort would certainly fail.
In theory they could be expelled by Congress itself. But obviously that's not going to happen.
The 2A crowd has thoughts about this
Yeah, thoughts and prayers. I'll believe the 2A crowd if they ever do something.
You have more faith in them than I do. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2A crowd rise up, in a year or two, to defend America's Lord and Savior Trump from leftist thugs.
Five days ago US Republicans "stopped time" with respect to a clock running that required a response to an appeal against Trump's tariffs.
~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43358343
~ https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolutio..."Each day [..] shall not constitute a calendar day"
An executive with a cowered majority can get away with almost anything when they can issue emergency orders and set aside an appeal and review process intended to temper such orders.
It's a triumph of creative lawyering over overt disobeying of judicial orders.
FDR threatened to pack the court with judges sympathetic to his policies. The Supreme Court Court backed down and ruled, in essence, the New Deal legal. In theory a court can issue arrest warrants but that isn’t going to happen with Trump. SCOTUS has already ruled that Presidents are largely immune to arrest and the President can pardon whomever he wants. Thus, effectively there is no legal mechanism for enforcement.
Much of the American system relies on established political norms for governance. Pretty much all of these norms are being gutted. No one knows what the long term impact will be but I believe the republic as we knew it is dead.
Judges order means nothing if the executive branch decides not to enforce it and the legislature won't hold the executive accountable.
I am honestly surprised we took so long to get to this failure mode of our system of government.
> Judges order means nothing if the executive branch decides not to enforce it and the legislature won't hold the executive accountable.
This administration will not act in good faith -- it will cite and use laws that it agrees with to compel action and when faced with anything not aligned with its goals will simply ignore it.
While there is resistance, it's going to be too little, too late. There's so many horrible aspects about this, but at the top is the fact that there's a sizable amount of the population which likes this. My faith in humanity is just about gone.
Yeah, I’ll never suffer another Republican speaking about “law and order” or upholding the Constitution again when they’ve so clearly and so reliably failed to do so.
Cafeteria constitutionalists -- they take the parts they like and dismiss the rest.
The other thing about "those people" and the Constitution is that they like to play the "originalism" game. I'm guessing theres a really high correlation between those folk and those that believe the bible is the literal word of god (i.e., those of an authoritarian bent).
Jefferson expected it to be molded by future generations (as it should). Case in point: that's why amendments exist. The current Republican party has made no secret they'd be happy to roll it all back to just the original doc, to make america great again by annointing white men as above all.
Separation of powers seems pretty toothless if it operates entirely on good faith.
It is toothless, but you need a lot of stars to align for this to work out. I mean, all it takes is a few people with a head on their shoulders and a commitment to the constitution to stop this.
This has been a lot of wealthy individuals and politicians wet dream for 200 years now. The fact that it's even coming to fruition at all points to how long, arduous, and complex the orchestration must have been. I mean, when did this really begin?
CBP detained Prof. Rasha Alawieh upon her return from Lebanon to the Boston Logan airport, and deported her after 36 hours of detention. Usually, CBP has broader powers at the border. So many people were deported from the US airports, despite having valid Visas; CBP folks can take ur phone and laptop and rummage through it, then deport folks for flimsy reasons.
https://archive.md/UPXfp
There are now three cases of the Trump admin explicitly ignoring orders from the Judiciary:
- The deportation of a Brown University Professor / kidney transplant specialist on an H1B (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/us/brown-university-rasha...)
- The deportation of Venezuelan immigrants using the Alien Enemies Act (https://6abc.com/post/trump-administration-ignores-judges-or...)
- The release of funds to states that Trump does not like (https://apnews.com/article/federal-grants-loans-spending-fre...)
Relatedly, many of my friends are now looking for quick avenues out of the country, including applying for EU/Canadian citizenship.
The legal system is a single point of failure here without any apparent teeth. The only thing that makes sense is to start holding the underlings in contempt
Generally, the Justice Department would side with the Courts, even if the President didn't. The idea that the President would interfere in the workings of the department to that degree is a new failure point.
Technically, impeachment and removal is another mechanism that would have to fail, but that one failed long ago. The bar is set very high and the process has never been completed.
well, turns out it's pretty simple according to the border patrol:
https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1901668299793899705?ref_src=twsr...
[dead]
[flagged]
So "searching around" where? On some 4chan board with unverifiable conjecture perhaps? Maybe on Twitter, home of factual information? Please, I would LOVE to hear that there is some kind of proof this person was actually a legitimate concern to national security or something. I'm just afraid I'm going to find out that no, it's just that our government has gone to hell, and I should be worried myself, a naturalized citizen with a passport but not born American, that I can somehow have my citizenship revoked because I think the president is a buffoon.
What exactly is not reflective of the facts? The court issued a standard order to the government to provide 48 hours notice before deporting her. The government ignored that order. You can see the docket here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741237/chehab-v-noem/
"Immigration officials did not receive this order before Alawieh was sent on a plane to Paris, according to the Boston Globe."
The Boston globe link was behind a paywall, unfortunately.
I don't mean to quibble inordinately, but there's probably enough bad here to stick to the lede (skilled worker deported without cause) and not distractions
https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/03/brown-profe...
That is not in the latest Boston Globe article on the case. https://archive.is/tvXUn
EDIT: OK I see the confusion. The Globe article from Friday quotes the organ program medical director as saying the court order "apparently" didn't arrive in time. But over the weekend, her lawyers provided a detailed timeline to the court saying that they provided the order to CBP at Logan Airport before the plane took off. So I think the claim you're referencing here is just outdated and incomplete. https://archive.is/IgnTA
Thanks!
What facts are we missing?
Please, feel free to share, I can't find anything different.
It's almost as if the argument for skilled foreign workers isn't real
"There is a shortage of American doctors working in Dr. Alawieh’s area of specialty, transplant nephrology. ... Her patients included individuals awaiting transplants and those dealing with the complex conditions that can occur after a transplant"
Sounds like a pretty strong argument to me.
"argument for skilled foreign workers isn't real"
Tbf, what made the USA great (in addition to vast amounts of natural resources, peaceful neighbors, and technological dominance over the indigenous) was turning skilled foreign workers into skilled local workers
Jesus Christ. I'm pro foreign workers. I was one myself. My point is that these people keep saying they want skilled workers, and then bs like this story happens, proving that their argument about wanting skilled workers is just an excuse. They're really just against foreign workers.
The economics of a reverse brain drain are well known and their upside is clear.