ICYMI: Mullin on Following Federal Courts (unclear)
Last week, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee regarding DHS's budget for FY2027. Here are snippets of an exchange between Senator Murphy (D-CT) and Secretary Mullin:
Senator Murphy: "When DHS gets a court order telling them that something they are doing is ... illegal and unconstitutional, prior to you taking office, the approach was to ignore that court order.... Now that you are on the job, can you commit to us that if a court judges something ICE is doing, something DHS is doing as illegal, unconstitutional, tells you to stop, that you will comply with the court order?"
Sec. Mullin: "...We will never break the constitution. And we're not going to break the law. But we're gonna enforce our nation's laws. And we're gonna enforce our laws that you guys passed and that we implement. We will never go outside that..."
When thereafter pressed by Sen. Murphy about committing to obeying court orders specifically, ("will you or will you not implement court orders")
Sec. Mullin: "If we didn't think court's were politicized then I'd probably be able to answer that, but we see courts over and over again that use their bench for their political opinion, not just the rule of law..."
When pressed more by Sen. Murphy:
Sec. Mullin: "We'll enforce the law and we're never gonna break the constitution"
Sen. Murphy pressed more, saying "If you're a Republican or Democrat on the Committee, you should be really, really freaked out."
Sec. Mullin: "We should be really concerned about the rulings that come out of the courts and how often they're overturned. They fall apart when you have a judge that's making a political opinion from the bench and they're outside the law too. Not all judges are above the law but sometimes they think they are. That's why we see lower courts overturned by higher courts constantly."
There was another session the following day.
Rep. Goldman noted: "the thing that concerned me is that you would not certify to Senator Murphy that you will follow the court orders even if you disagree."
Sec. Mullin responded: "We enforce the nation's laws. Full stop."
Rep. Goldman: "So you will follow court orders. Is that-"
Sec. Mullin: "I said we'll enforce the nation's laws."
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I missed this news when it came out, but it was cited more than once during last week's immprof conference. I appreciate the head's up, and am sharing it here in case anyone else missed it too.
