berg80
Diamond Member
- Oct 28, 2017
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I imagine he's familiar with the feeling since he's an alcoholic. But this fall is more metaphorical than physical.
A federal judge this week dismissed charges against nearly 100 migrants detained under a Trump administration effort to arrest undocumented migrants for trespassing on a newly declared “national defense” zone along New Mexico’s border with Mexico.
The order from a federal magistrate judge, Gregory B. Wormuth, added to the confusion and legal turmoil that have gripped New Mexico in the month since President Trump declared a ribbon of land along the 180-mile length of the state’s southern border to be an Army base.
Around 400 migrants had been charged with willfully violating security regulations — misdemeanor charges that can carry up to a year in jail. The arrests, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was praising just last Friday, had swamped local jails and every day brought dozens of shackled migrants into a federal courtroom to face the novel charges.
“When you cross illegally, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Hegseth said in a social media message.
But Judge Wormuth, a former federal prosecutor, said the federal government had failed to show that the migrants actually knew they were unlawfully entering a restricted military area. He has dismissed charges against 98 migrants so far as he works through the docket.
A federal judge this week dismissed charges against nearly 100 migrants detained under a Trump administration effort to arrest undocumented migrants for trespassing on a newly declared “national defense” zone along New Mexico’s border with Mexico.
The order from a federal magistrate judge, Gregory B. Wormuth, added to the confusion and legal turmoil that have gripped New Mexico in the month since President Trump declared a ribbon of land along the 180-mile length of the state’s southern border to be an Army base.
Around 400 migrants had been charged with willfully violating security regulations — misdemeanor charges that can carry up to a year in jail. The arrests, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was praising just last Friday, had swamped local jails and every day brought dozens of shackled migrants into a federal courtroom to face the novel charges.
“When you cross illegally, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Hegseth said in a social media message.
But Judge Wormuth, a former federal prosecutor, said the federal government had failed to show that the migrants actually knew they were unlawfully entering a restricted military area. He has dismissed charges against 98 migrants so far as he works through the docket.
