by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Justice Writer
From the air, the world looks like a child’s playset. It looks like you could just reach down and pick up the little cars and trucks and shake them up and stomp all over the little ant-people and make them act better to each other in order to avoid being squashed into so much tiny people goo and –
Umm, that may be a little more about me than I should reveal.
The point is, when you are in a military transport plane being deported, you don’t have access to such fantasies. Which is probably just as well.
The administration of President Ronald McDruhitmumpf has invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (the Foundling Fathers were especially concerned about attacks from Mars, although they didn’t rule out the possibility that Venutians had more advanced technologies – in their wisdom, they were sci fi before there even was a sci fi!) to deport hundreds of “illegal immigrants.”
“They’re the worst of the worst of the worst,” President McDruhitmumpf said. “You thought the worst of the worst was bad? Hah! Kid’s stuff! The worst of the worst of the worst – or WWIII as we like to call them – are worse! Venezuelan Gang members so heinous, I can’t say what they’ve done in public! Ask me about it later when we’re alone – it’s juicy stuff!”
“The men the government has deported haven’t been given any sort of due process,” pointed out Vesampuccerian Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelernthelplessness. “No charges, no trial, nothing. We don’t know if they’re gang members. We don’t know what role they played if they were: maybe they were ringleaders, maybe they were the stupid second cousin of a second cousin who is given the watch on the door as a family favour with the hope that he’ll stay out of everybody’s way. Hell, we don’t know if they’re even Venezuelan. For all we know, they could be Vesampuccerians with dark skin and a speech impediment mistaken for a foreign accent. We. Just. Don’t. Know.”
Judge James Boasbergerfryes agreed with Gelernthelplessness, putting a stay on the flights until a determination about their legality. (The 1798 law, for example, limited the president’s power to deport people to war, and the judge rules that the war on waste, fraud and abuse – ie; government – didn’t qualify.)
When the government made the argument that the planes were already in international airspace and, therefore, couldn’t be recalled, Judge Boasbergerfryes apoplectically called Department of Injustice lawyers back into his court to demand to know why.
“Well, you know, we didn’t believe your ruling was, you know, lawful and stuff,” the DoI lawyers bashfully argued. “And, well, aww, shucks, there’s this whole ‘judicial overreach’ thing that the administration has been peddling to the public for weeks, now, and, anyway, preparing briefs is so time-consuming and boring and stuff. So, we just, you know, figured asking for forgiveness after the fact was better than, like, asking permission, right?”
“Wrong!” Judge Boasbergerfryes roared. “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! That’s not how the justice system works! Wrongo! Wrongamania! Wrongalongadinga! So! Much! Wrong!”
“Oh, yeah,” the DoI lawyers responded. “We’re definitely appealing this ruling.”
“You know how people wondered when the McDruhitmumpf administration was going to put the country into a Constitutional crisis?” asked token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam. “Well, if we were looking at a map of the government, there would now be a huge garishly purple ‘You are here’ arrow lined with 60 watt flashing light bulbs pointing straight at this case.”
She explained that many people had been certain that the Constitutional crisis would be triggered when President McDruhitmumpf refused to spend funds that Congress had approved, but the Reduhblican controlled houses went along with it. Ignoring a lawful court order might be the trigger, although the token smart person cautions that even that is uncertain.
“If the independence of the courts is neutered, all governmental power will be vested in the office of the president,” she stated. “Which reminds me – I really should see if my passport is up to date…”
Meanwhile, not everybody not working for President McDruhitmumpf is unhappy with the arrangement.
“Ooh, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, please,” enthused El Salvador President Nayib Bukelelesong. “Six million Vesampucceri dollars will buy a lot of gold bathroom fixtures – absolutely necessary, I am told, if I want your President McDruhitmumpf to come on a state visit. Ooh, and when we put the prisoners you send us to work in the prison’s monogrammed hankie production facility, their incarceration will practically pay for itself! Talk about a win-win situation!”
For the government of El Salvador, perhaps. For the people being sent there, not so much.