Ruling slams former bail plan
Appeals court agrees with judge it’s unfair to poor
An appeals court Wednesday upheld most of a federal district judge’s historic ruling that changed Harris County’s bail practices, agreeing the previous bail system was unconstitutional and unfair to lowlevel indigent defendants.
The circuit court, however, ordered her to reconsider her ruling on several matters and revise an injunction it found overly broad.
The opinion by the three-judge panel affirmed the Houston lower court’s conclusion in April that the county’s bail process did not protect poor detainees from bail being imposed as “an instrument of oppression.”
The appeals court concluded that indigent people in Harris County “sustain an absolute deprivation of their most basic liberty interests — freedom from incarceration.”
The ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after the county mounted a $5.2 million challenge to a 2016 class action lawsuit brought by indigent defendants, whose lawyers argued their clients ended up in “wealth-based detention,” often entering guilty pleas to get out of jail, while those with money could post cash bail and resume their lives pending trial.
“It’s a huge deal that the 5th Circuit, one of the most conservative courts which is often the ultimate decider for this region, supports the finding of the district court,” said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, an longtime proponent of bail reform. “I just plead with
“With this decision, the conservative 5th Circuit is telling Harris County that it’s unconstitutional to have two justice systems ...” Rodney Ellis, commissioner
WASHINGTON — A partisan stalemate stretched into its third day Wednesday as senators juggled competing plans to address the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that has shielded nearly 800,000 young immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children.
Activists on both sides of the immigration debate expressed mounting frustration as the Senate agreed to begin voting Thursday on a series of rival proposals, none of which appeared to have the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles.
Adding to the confusion, President Donald Trump threw his support behind both a Senate proposal co-sponsored by Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn that would extend a path to citizenship for DACA’s so-called Dreamers, and a House plan co-sponsored by Texas U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul that wouldn’t.
Whether a resolution could be reached before a March 5 deadline set by Trump remained unclear. There are an estimated 124,000 Dreamers in Texas and 80,000 in the Houston area.
Trump, who has cast the debate as the nation’s “last chance” to overhaul its immigration laws, called on the Senate to pass a bill introduced Wednesday by Cornyn and Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley that would offer citizenship to as many as 1.8 million Dreamers while investing as much as $25 billion in border security, including a wall. Trump’s demands
Though Democrats have signaled their willingness to pair more border spending with a legal fix for Dreamers, they have balked at two other Trump demands curtailing legal immigration. One would end a diversity lottery system that provides visas to citizens of many Third World countries; the other would restrict family-based immigration to spouses and minor children.
Cornyn called it a “good starting point… (that) actually stands a good chance of becoming law.”
Democrats, however, consider the curbs on legal migration to be “poison pills.”
“President Trump’s contribution to this debate has been to put forward a proposal that contains a vast curtailment of legal immigration far outside the scope of DACA or border security and demanding that Democrats support it,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
As the Senate rushed to resolve the DACA issue this week, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that given a pair of federal court rulings questioning the legality of Trump’s March 5 deadline, he’s looking at a later date for action.
“We clearly need to address this issue in March,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
Ryan faces increasing pressure from House conservatives to advance a bill sponsored by McCaul and Virginia U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte that includes all of Trump’s demands – except for a path to citizenship for Dreamers.
Instead, the House bill would offer renewable three-year visas for an indefinite period of time, a provision that its backers say would give Dreamers legal status and the opportunity to apply for citizenship by other means, such as through marriage and employment.
McCaul’s bill also would crack down on so-called sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities, and institute an E-verify system for employers to check the legal status of their employees.
Neither of those provisions – popular with immigration restrictionists – is in the Senate bill being pushed by Cornyn and Grassley. Votes planned for Thursday
Cornyn and other Republicans leaders signaled that they plan to hold votes Thursday on both Republican and Democratic proposals — possibly including one by a bipartisan group of senators led GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine focused on undocumented immigrants and border security.
Several senators who emerged from a closed-door meeting in her office Wednesday said it could break through the gridlock, though they remained tight-lipped about the details. According to some reports, it would set restrictions on the ability of Dreamers’ parents to become citizens.
Cornyn, however, suggested that it would be hard to pass any bill in the Senate or the House that didn’t meet all four pillars of Trump’s framework, which excludes the parents and extended family members of Dreamers.
Trump was quick to shoot down another bipartisan proposal Wednesday backed by Arizona Republican John McCain and Delaware Democrat Chris Coons granting a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers in exchange for security and technology upgrades on the southern border.
Patterned after a plan co-sponsored by Texas U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, a San Antonio Republican, it would provide no immediate funding for a border wall or fencing until after a mile-by-mile border strategy inventory of need.
Although Hurd is a top Democratic target, Schumer and other Senate Democrats have rallied around his proposal.
Adding to the pressure was McConnell’s plan to wrap up the Senate debate before Congress breaks next week for Presidents Day.
“I hope we’ll take advantage of this opportunity this week,” Corny said. “Time is wasting. It’s Wednesday. We don’t have any time to waste at all.”