DL Open Thread: Saturday, May 23, 2026

First In Line For Trump Slush Fund Reward?  He certainly should be:

A federal judge in Tennessee on Friday dismissed criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego García, an immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia was charged last year with human smuggling after being returned to the U.S. The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. He didn’t face charges then, but the Justice Department reopened an investigation into the traffic stop after a federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return from El Salvador.

In his ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw said the actions by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche “taints the investigation with a vindictive motive.”

“The reopening of the closed HSI investigation is the source of the vindictiveness,” Crenshaw said, referring to Homeland Security Investigations, which conducts federal criminal probes.

Crenshaw said the government would not have prosecuted Abrego Garcia if not for his successful lawsuit challenging his deportation to El Salvador.

“Blanche’s now unrebutted public statements tying the reopened investigation to Abrego’s successful lawsuit taints the investigation with a vindictive motive,” Crenshaw said. “The evidence before this Court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power.”

These People Should Be Right Behind Him In Line:

In a dramatic final twist to the highest-profile criminal case resulting from “Operation Midway Blitz,” the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday dropped all charges against the remaining “Broadview Six” protesters, citing apparent prosecutorial misconduct in the grand jury proceedings that led to last fall’s indictments.

The case had been scheduled to go to a rare federal misdemeanor trial next week after having been winnowed down from six to four defendants in March before prosecutors suddenly announced their decision to drop the marquee felony conspiracy charge late last month.

But in a stunning turn of events Thursday, a federal judge canceled the trial after a closed-door hearing in which she rebuked prosecutors for both their dealings with the grand jury and for having previously obscured parts of the grand jury transcript that would have revealed their apparent misconduct earlier.

U.S. District Judge April Perry told assistant U.S. attorneys on the case that she was “incredibly shocked” by the redactions in an earlier version of the grand jury transcript compared with the full unredacted version she read earlier this week.

“I have read hundreds — if not thousands — of grand jury transcripts involving prosecutors who are the most junior of prosecutors to several U.S. Attorneys who appeared before the grand jury,” Perry said, according to a record of the sealed hearing made public Thursday evening. “I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts.”

If you lump these two stories together, the Department Of Justice is literally a criminal enterprise.  Needless to say, I could add a whole lot more stories…

Trump Announces Half-Baked Green Card Policy. No details on how it would work:

Foreigners in the U.S. who want a green card will need to leave and apply in their home country, the Trump administration announced Friday, in a surprise change to a longstanding policy that sowed confusion and concern among aid groups, immigration lawyers and immigrants.

For over half a century, foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete the entire process for permanent residence in the United States — including individuals married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and political asylum seekers, among others.

The announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said foreigners who are in the U.S. temporarily and who want to apply to become lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, have to return home and apply there, except in “extraordinary circumstances.” USCIS officers would decide whether applicants meet those.

USCIS did not say when the change would come into effect, whether individuals would be required to remain in another country throughout the entire process, or whether the policy impacts foreigners whose green card applications are already underway.

In an emailed statement to the Associated Press the agency said people who provide an “economic benefit” or “national interest” could likely stay in the U.S. while others would have to go abroad to apply.

Experts and attorneys warned that forcing people from those countries to return home to apply for a green card would result in them being barred from coming back.

“If families are told that the non-citizen family member must return to his or her country of origin to process their immigrant visa, but immigrant visas are not being processed there, it’s a Catch-22. These policies will effectively create an indefinite separation of families,” wrote World Relief, a humanitarian and refugee resettlement organization.

USCIS described the change as a return to “the original intent of the law” and closing a “loophole.”

But immigration lawyers and aid groups pushed back, saying it was longstanding practice for many groups to be able to adjust their status in the U.S. and that many people couldn’t return home because it wasn’t safe or they had no embassy to apply at. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, for example, has been closed since the U.S. pullout in August 2021.

Quick thought:  All this speculation on Tom Kean Jr’s absence from Congress due to an undisclosed medical condition ignores this fact:  The only reason he is in Congress is because his name is Tom Kean Jr.  

Could College Football End The Political Resegregation In The South?  Hmmm, interesting…:

The assault comes from the country’s highest judicial office, where the supreme court gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 under the argument that protecting the voting opportunities of Black people is a discriminatory practice and not a restorative one, despite the hundreds of graves throughout the south, marked and unmarked, of Black Americans killed for trying to vote.

The assault continues from the country’s highest legislative branches, state and federal, where massive southern redistricting efforts threaten to erase much of the Black political representation won over the past 60 years. The move is similar to one from 1902, when the cities of New Orleans, Montgomery, Memphis and Mobile all within weeks of one another passed legislation segregating public rail cars. Within two years, all public accommodations in the south – from transportation to water fountains – were separated by race.

This week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) turned to sports to join part of its dissent, calling for Black athletes to boycott public universities in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), arguably the most powerful football conference in the country and certainly its greatest incubator of Black athletic talent. The NAACP is responding to a political attack with a social and economic one, for no institution is as culturally relevant in the south as college football, and few economic engines gain as much public attention as sports.

The NAACP is betting that Black Americans will recognize, finally, the urgency of the moment, that the parents of these gifted, valuable youths will join the fight, put two and two together and realize their power. Black people represent 14% of the population, but they are certainly more than 14% of American culture, and the Black athlete is the most successful, most influential and most visible Black employee this country has ever produced. A sustained, coordinated movement of Black athletes against hostile states would have a profound effect on football fields and basketball courts – as well as politics.

The sports industry, if it recognizes a potential threat at all, is betting on apathy and nihilism, that no one can be bothered to engage in anything but themselves. They want the Black players to believe they are powerless when they are anything but, to think they are separate from the ground battle taking place in their communities.

What do you want to talk about?