State AG Threatening to Remove Ft Myers Commissioners

The statute actually contemplates that even that could be a basis for deportation.

The deportation statute incorporates two exceptions from the similar exclusion statute. The first (not relevant here) is for foreign government officials or candidates for foreign governmental office.

The second says that they are not subject to removal “because of the alien's past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States,” but then includes an exception to that exception which allows them to be removed where the Secretary of State “personally determines” that their presence “would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest” and notifies certain congressional leadership of the removal “on a timely basis.”

 

I actually think that in terms of the foreign policy exclusion there isn’t (and shouldn’t be) much more to it. Foreign policy is a nearly exclusively political realm that courts are extremely hesitant to wade into in nearly every other context.

 

I may have missed on the dots being connected here; how does the Palestinian protestor situation relate to the Ft. Myers city council situation. Both are certainly interesting in their own right.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Congress wrote a statute that says their removability is dependent on the Secretary of State’s determination. Given that, the review that ought to be applicable should be extremely constrained (i.e., has the Secretary of State actually made the determination, and perhaps an extremely narrow review of whether the determination plausibly relates to some articulable foreign policy interest). Beyond that, yes, it unequivocally is not the province of the judicial branch to determine what the foreign policy of the United States is or what best serves it.

 

The courts certainly give a lot of deference in foreign policy but the statute doesn’t override Constitutional protections. This Supreme Court doesn’t seem to pay much mind to those protections though. So I certainly do not expect them to rule the statute is void for vagueness and that the student is being deported based on the content of his speech, despite both obviously being the case.

 

Wait, requiring county/municipal law enforcement to cooperate regarding illegal aliens that by definition have committed Federal immigration crimes is a "local" issue? Being a contrarian to law enforcement having a united front regarding the US border is not justifiable on any grounds.

 

This provision of the INA is extremely infrequently invoked, so I don’t know how often it has come up.

But the Board of Immigration Appeals under Clinton considered it, and concluded that review of the Secretary of State’s determination is largely ministerial and consists only of verifying that the Secretary of State has set forth a facially reasonable and bona fide basis for his determination, but does not reach determining whether the Secretary’s decision is actually reasonable because doing so would entangle others in foreign policy considerations that have been firmly committed to the Secretary of State, and that it seems clear that the law did not contemplate others second guessing the Secretary of State’s decision. It leaves open the question of whether the Secretary of State’s determination could be sufficient if it sets forth no reason at all, but that’s about it.

Honestly, the First Amendment doesn’t mean a ton in the deportation context - the Supreme Court itself has acknowledged that, while it may not be the result you would want to reach if writing from a clean slate, there’s so much precedent saying that Congress’s immigration authority is plenary that it’s an extremely difficult challenge to prevail on. Hell, we have precedent expressly approving legislation making aliens deportable based upon membership in the Communist Party. It’s tough to argue that this case presents more serious First Amendment concerns than that one does.

 

What we’re not seeing is that there was a long line of people speaking out against this so the commissioners who voted no, or didn’t vote, were simply serving their constituents. Ft. Meyers is a solid red town in a solid red county, so this looks more like a fight republicans are having with themselves.

DeeeeSantis has removed people from elected office who didn’t agree with him before, so despite it being an authoritarian act, and a violation of American principles, I’m sure he’ll replace those commissioners with bobble heads who will do his bidding rather than the bidding of their constituents.

 

Yep, you beat me to it. Ft Myers is typically ground zero for MAGA support, so there must be more to this than is posted here. Maybe Ft Misery actually has a couple of Dems in the council.

So, having grown up in FM I was curious and it seems that the 3 council members are all women, interesting. As for removing officials, I can recall a few duly elected Dems that have been removed by desantis, but of course no Rs. Of course, maga gov candidate Rep Donald is threatening removal of federal funding. S/b interesting.

Voters react to Fort Myers City Council ICE vote