Many of us had never heard of District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan until he famously ordered the U.S. government to turn around in mid-air a jet deporting a mother and daughter and return them to the States for a proper hearing.
Sullivan, 71, is being considered a hero for ordering a plane deporting the two asylum seekers to El Salvador to turn around and return them to the U.S., so they can have a fair and impartial immigration hearing.
The well-respected Sullivan then blocked the Trump Administration from deporting the two, and other asylum seekers, before they can receive proper hearings to stay in the U.S.
A frustrated Sullivan was hearing an emergency petition last week by the American Civil Liberties Union that the immigrants they are representing in a federal lawsuit should not be deported while their cases are pending.
The hearing turned dramatic when attorneys discovered that two of their clients, a mom and daughter, were put on a plane to El Salvador. Court was assured the asylum seekers would be available, instead they were quietly placed on a flight home.
The mother, known in court documents as Carmen to protect her identity, and her daughter were challenging Trump Administration rules that bar the use of domestic and gang violence as the basis for asylum applications.
“Oh, I want those people brought back forthwith. … I’m not asking, I’m ordering,” Sullivan said in his Washington, D.C. courtroom after learning what had happened.
The D.C.-native said he was “directing the government to turn that plane around either now or when it lands, turn that plane around and bring those people back to the United States. It’s outrageous.”
He then threatened to issue U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions with a contempt-of-court order, saying if the immigrants weren’t returned he was going to order officials to explain “why people should not be held in contempt of court, and I’m going to start with the Attorney General.”
“I know I’m raising my voice, but I’m extremely upset about this,” the experienced judge snapped. “This is not acceptable.”
He continued with the hearing but kept reflecting on how he was “really upset” and found it “pretty outrageous” that “somebody in the pursuit of justice … is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her.”
The young girl was among 2,551 children, who were separated from their parents at border crossings. Of those, 559 are still apart from their parents and 386 have been deported, according to U.S. border officials, who have lost track of the deported parents of 26 separated kids.
The plane was not able to turn around in mid-flight, but a Department of Homeland Security official said the mother and daughter did not disembark in El Salvador and were returned to the U.S.
According to their lawsuit, Carmen and her young daughter came to the U.S. from El Salvador after “two decades of horrific sexual abuse by her husband and death threats from a violent gang.
But at the U.S. border, the government determined after interviewing her that she did not meet the “credible fear” threshold required to pursue an asylum claim in the U.S., and an immigration judge upheld that decision.
Sullivan was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in October 1984. He was appointed in November 1991 by President George H. W. Bush to serve as an Associate Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
He was nominated by President Bill Clinton in March 1994 to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and was confirmed by the Senate in June 1994.
Not one to back down from controversy. In 2015 Sullivan presided over a Freedom of Information lawsuit involving the use of Hillary Clinton’s private email while she was the Secretary of State.
He was also involved in a high-profile case involving United States of America v. Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser to Donald J. Trump, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
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