Quote (thundercock @ Oct 29 2021 03:39am)
Probably not, but throwing money at the problem is often the best solution. Can you imagine what would happen if every case went to trial and we didn't have pleas and settlements? It'd be an unmitigated disaster.
Damages obviously exist because these people had their children with them prior to entering the country so I don't think that's a valid argument. There were more humane ways to deal with the situation but the administration was intentionally cruel and extremely sloppy. Having said that, it probably doesn't matter because it's painfully difficult to win suits against the Feds. If there is a nonzero chance that a judge doesn't throw this out, the administration will have to defend it and that is probably WORSE from a politics standpoint.
The precedent is extremely clear that the US government cannot be held liable in civil court for enforcing the laws and carrying out executive policy. If the people elect a president on a policy platform and he delivers on that policy and that policy is held constitutional by the courts, the courts can't do an end-run around the checks and balances by holding the government liable for tort claims. If the DoJ didn't vigorously defend such baldly hollow legal threats and instead paid ransom every time there was a nonzero risk of it not getting thrown out, it would both encourage more people to seek paydays via frivolous civil suits as well as erode the constitutional powers of the legislature and executive.
I mean, if there's a law saying I can't sue my neighbor for being Jewish, and I go to court and sue my neighbor alleging he's a Jew and therefore owes me his Jew gold, well in a society anti-semitic enough you could plausibly get that to fly in court despite all the law saying I can't, somehow, some way. And after all, a jury of Derek Chauvin's peers listened to an autopsy present negative physical evidence of injury and every possible indicator of an overdose down to having recovered the partially digested pills George Floyd overdosed on, and he still got convicted on the modern day spectral evidence. I don't doubt that the odds are non-zero. I even understand how the Biden administration would be put into a bind by having the DoJ defend the legitimacy of the Trump administration's policies. Of course, in a sane world that wouldn't even be a question. In whackadoo world where everything is so hyperpartisan to the point of denying basic facts and logic, sure, they wouldn't defend Trump's right to breathe air.
Maybe this is just one more example of what we lose when politics goes off the deep end and a president is elected on hyperpartisanship