POLITICO writer Josh Gerstein reports a federal judge is demanding the Trump administration explain what looks like misinformation they shared with the court.
Proclaiming “I will not be strung along,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes set a hearing this morning to determine if the Trump administration is trying to shutter three important Department of Homeland Security (DHS) oversight offices in defiance of Constitutional arguments that only Congress has that power.
Reyes opted to set a follow-up hearing this morning after back-and-forth between the court and government attorneys at a May 22 hearing.
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“I don’t appreciate being lied to,” Reyes said yesterday. “If that is indeed what has happened, there will be serious consequences.”
Attorneys for the Trump administration allegedly told the court last week that the U.S. ombudsman offices for the Citizenship & Immigration Services and the Office of Immigration Detention were still intact despite layoffs of hundreds of DHS employees, part-time employees and contract workers.
But a DHS staffer who department leaders had scheduled for termination submitted to the court an internal document saying “the entirety of the offices were eliminated.”
Reyes demanded DHS leaders immediately file statements to the court, under penalty of perjury, explaining the mixed information.
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Gerstein reports DHS Human Resources officials Nicole Barksdale-Perry said the contentious internal memo “was not intended to suggest that DHS had long-term plans for the elimination of these offices,” that it merely spoke to the lack of slots for potential transfers.