Trump prosecutor threatened by judge for lying about detained high-schooler

A federal judge in Florida has ordered the immediate release of a high-schooler who was detained by Orlando-area sheriff's deputies on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and threatened professional sanctions against the U.S. Attorney who oversaw all of this.

Senior U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton of the Middle District of Florida pulled no punches in slamming every law enforcement official involved with the detention of Javier Giminez Rivero, a Venezuelan youth brought to the United States with his parents to flee the conditions in that country.

Rivero has no criminal history and has lived, worked, and attended school without incident in the United States for over four years. However, he was abruptly rounded up by Orange County sheriff's deputies, without even being given a notice of order for removal, and was held under ICE detainer at the county jail for days "without criminal charges, a notice to appear, a warrant, a hearing, or any written notice of the basis of his detention," the court's order noted. Rivero's legal team filed a habeas petition after ICE moved to have him transferred to a federal facility in Miami.

Dalton granted the habeas petition from Rivero, ordering that he be released from custody. But he did not stop there, accusing the local federal prosecutors of trying to deceive the court.

"Judges across the country — the vast majority who have considered this question — have told the Government many times in the past few months that its interpretation of the law is wrong," wrote Dalton. "This is no partisan stance: judges appointed by every President from Ronald Reagan through Donald Trump have said so." If federal prosecutors want to do that, he said, they "must make those arguments in a way that comports with their professional obligations ... Don’t hide the ball. Don’t ignore the overwhelming weight of persuasive authority as if it won’t be found. And don’t send a sacrificial lamb to stand before this Court with a fistful of cases that don’t apply and no cogent argument for why they should."

"Members of this Bar have a duty of candor to the Court. The Government’s response does not meet that standard," Dalton concluded. "So U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe, Esq., and Assistant U.S. Attorney Joy Warner, Esq., must show cause why they should not be sanctioned."

This marks the latest in a growing list of federal judges who have grown sick of Trump administration prosecutors stonewalling or obfuscating, with a federal judge in Minnesota outright threatening to hold an ICE official in contempt this week.