Thread: Judge orders Trump administration to allow abortion for illegal alien teen

U.S. judge orders Trump administration to allow abortion for undocumented teen

By Maria Sacchetti
October 18 at 10:30 PM

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. government to allow an undocumented immigrant teenager in its custody to have an abortion and said she was “astounded” that the Trump administration was trying to block the procedure.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the pregnant teen, cheered the judge’s ruling as a major victory for abortion and immigrant rights.

“We never should have had to fight this in the first place,” said Brigitte Amiri, a senior ACLU staff attorney who argued the case on Wednesday. “It should never have been something that we needed to go to court over.”

Late Wednesday, however, the Justice Department appealed the case, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling.

The government asked the appeals court to rule by 9 p.m. on Thursday, to prevent the 17-year-old, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, from having an “irreversible elective abortion” while the appeal is pending. The government said the teenager, who is in her 15th week of pregnancy, “still has a number of weeks in which she could legally and safely obtain an abortion.”

Hours earlier, Chutkan had ordered the government to allow the teen to visit the abortion provider located closest to her shelter in Texas on Thursday and undergo state-mandated counseling before terminating the pregnancy on Friday or Saturday. Texas bars most abortions after 20 weeks.

“Failure to comply with the terms of this Order may result in a finding of contempt,” wrote Chutkan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

The case of the Central American teen has drawn national attention. Democrats in Congress expressed opposition to the government’s stance, while Texas and seven other states filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting it.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony List, said Chutkan’s ruling “sets a dangerous precedent” for officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who she said were trying to “protect the life and dignity of the teenage girl and her unborn child.”

Court filings make clear that the government is trying to prevent minors in its custody from having abortions, a departure from U.S. practice under Obama. Scott Lloyd, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the HHS agency that cares for unaccompanied minors caught crossing the border, said in an email in March that federally funded shelters “should not be supporting abortion services pre or post-release; only pregnancy services and life-affirming options counseling.”

During the hearing Wednesday, Chutkan asked Justice Department lawyer Scott Stewart whether he thought illegal immigrants had constitutional rights and whether he believes that the 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade , which guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion, is still the “law of the land.”

Stewart acknowledged the ruling but said the government views this case differently because the teen is an undocumented immigrant in federal custody. He signaled that undocumented minors do not have a constitutional right to an elective abortion in federal custody, unless it is a medical emergency, and also said immigrants here illegally have “minimal” protections in this country.

“I’m not going to give you a concession on that, Your Honor,” he said.

The judge laughed. “This is remarkable,” she said.

Chutkan said the teen’s immigration status was irrelevant and that she still had constitutional rights. She wrote that the teen will “suffer irreparable injury,” including health risks, if the government interferes with her abortion plans. Chutkan also barred the government from forcing the teen to reveal her abortion decision to anyone or retaliating against her or the federally funded shelter housing her in Texas. She did not immediately act on an ACLU request to apply her ruling to other minors in federal custody.

By refusing to allow the girl to be transported to have an abortion, Chutkan said, the government appeared to be offering the teenager two options: voluntarily return to a nation she fled to have an abortion; or carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

“I am astounded by that position,” Chutkan said.

In court filings, the Justice Department said the government has “strong and constitutionally legitimate interests in promoting childbirth, in refusing to facilitate abortion, and in not providing incentives for pregnant minors to illegally cross the border to obtain elective abortions while in federal custody.”

Chutkan countered during the hearing that the teenager does not need a medical emergency to exercise her right to an abortion. She said the teen had followed state and federal rules: She obtained permission from a state judge in Texas to have an abortion and would cover the expenses herself or with help through her court-appointed guardian.

All the government had to do, Chutkan said, is process the paperwork to let the girl visit the clinic, just as they would if she needed to have her tonsils removed.

The judge pointed out that the federal workers took the teenager, against her wishes, to a Christian pregnancy facility for counseling aimed at persuading her not to abort, and also informed her mother about the pregnancy. Both steps potentially violated the girl’s constitutional protections, Chutkan said.

“The government didn’t seem to have any problem facilitating that,” Chutkan said.

The teen has been in federal custody since early September, when she was caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Her native country has not been made public.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...-abortion-for-

Stewart acknowledged the ruling but said the government views this case differently because the teen is an undocumented immigrant in federal custody. He signaled that undocumented minors do not have a constitutional right to an elective abortion in federal custody, unless it is a medical emergency, and also said immigrants here illegally have “minimal” protections in this country.

In court filings, the Justice Department said the government has “strong and constitutionally legitimate interests in promoting childbirth, in refusing to facilitate abortion, and in not providing incentives for pregnant minors to illegally cross the border to obtain elective abortions while in federal custody.”

Really? Is Jeff Sessions now claiming he supports the promotion of foreign breeding on our soil by illegal aliens and generating by force the birth of anchor babies in our country?

What are you doing ... Jeff? Encouraging the illegal migration of pregnant girls and women into the United States so you can sign them up for Medicaid services, promote the birth of anchor babies on our soil, then give them amnesty to raise their citizen child and show the Pro-Life Movement what a good boy you are?

This is so messed up, because this is not adhering to the rule of law. This is a barbaric asinine diversion.

Originally Posted by Judy

Really? Is Jeff Sessions now claiming he supports the promotion of foreign breeding on our soil by illegal aliens and generating by force the birth of anchor babies in our country?

What are you doing ... Jeff? Encouraging the illegal migration of pregnant girls and women into the United States so you can sign them up for Medicaid services, promote the birth of anchor babies on our soil, then give them amnesty to raise their citizen child and show the Pro-Life Movement what a good boy you are?

This is so messed up, because this is not adhering to the rule of law. This is a barbaric asinine diversion.

No matter how hard you try to justify the ACLU and Obama appointed judge's position on this, you're fighting a losing battle on ALIPAC. Were are against illegal immigration and the rewarding of illegal aliens that sneak across our border in the hopes of receiving a benefit, any benefit. Oh, and we're certainly against rewarding them!

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is doing the right thing. We do not want to become the go-to place for the worlds poor seeking an abortion, no more than we want to be the place for them to illegally come here to work or participate in criminal activity. The ACLU is using this poor girl to further their own personal agenda in support of pro-choice. Don't fall for it .... oops, you already have. Well, you need to look beyond that and realize that allowing the illegal to receive the very exact thing she came here for is rewarding her! We need to stand together and yell from the highest mountain top, no benefits or rewards for illegal aliens!

I think you're being very hypocritical regarding this whole situation because normally you're one of the loudest voice against rewarding illegal immigrants! To see you bow to an Obama appointed liberally progressive judge and the leftist ACLU on rewarding an illegal alien is dumbfounding to say the least.

And I think you're being very shallow and short-sighted by supporting a Pro-Life stance by the US Justice Department that violates the rule of law, the rights of girls and women, and achieves nothing but the forced breeding of anchor babies and the chain migration that accompanies it under existing law.

As to the "go to place" for abortions, that would frankly be better than the present "go to place" we are now for foreign breeding on US soil which the Sessions Justice Department proudly admits it is promoting, by force if necessary.

Originally Posted by Judy

And I think you're being very shallow and short-sighted by supporting a Pro-Life stance by the US Justice Department that violates the rule of law, the rights of girls and women, and achieves nothing but the forced breeding of anchor babies and the chain migration that accompanies it under existing law.

As to the "go to place" for abortions, that would frankly be better than the present "go to place" we are now for foreign breeding on US soil which the Sessions Justice Department proudly admits it is promoting, by force if necessary.

How many times do I have to say that this is not a pro-choice or anti-abortion issue for me? So your saying I'm supporting one stance over another is false.

What I don't support is rewarding illegal immigrants, especially with the reward they're specifically seeking. This could set a very nasty precedent that will make the U.S. a beacon to all potential illegal immigrants in search of an abortion. Many things motivate illegals to cross our border. Why give them another reason? Sorry, your argument in favor of rewarding an illegal alien with the very thing she came here for just doesn't make any sense to me.

Oh, and in my view there is no "rule of law" being broken here because an illegal has no rights to demand anything here.

I don't care what it is for you. I know what it is for the US Justice Department because they stated what it is in their arguments, i. e. "promoting childbirth" by using the force of government to prevent someone it doesn't consider a full person under the US Constitution and federal law from having an abortion.

The hypocrisy and illegality is so obvious it makes you want to puke, and all so easily proved by simply showing how many pregnant illegal alien minors they've signed up on Medicaid, provided housing for, given the mother a green card to raise her citizen, signed 'em both up for a life-time of welfare and shouted to the world associated with the 30 million illegal aliens in the US "come ya'll, come here to breed, the US government will pay for everything."

JUDGE'S ORDER TO GIVE ILLEGAL ALIEN ABORTION OVERRULED

Trump administration takes on Obama appointee attempting to create new 'constitutional right'

Published: 4 hours ago

Tanya S. Chutkan, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, to be United States District Judge for the District of Columbia. February 25, 2014. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL.

A judge’s demand – under threat of a contempt citation – that U.S. government officials provide a taxpayer-funded abortion to an illegal alien teenager has been temporarily halted.

Another hearing is expected to be held as early as Friday in the case, which was brought on behalf of a teen held at a Texas detention center for illegal aliens.

According to Fox News, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, responding to an appeal from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, temporarily suspended an order from the pro-abortion judge in Texas, Tanya Chutkan.

Chuktan had ordered officials on Wednesday to take the teen “promptly and without delay” to an abortion clinic.
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The girl, 17, has not been identified in court documents. She is believed to be about 15 weeks pregnant, the report said.

Read the tested and proven strategies to defeat the abortion cartel, in “Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time.”

State law in Texas bans most abortions if a woman is more than 20 weeks pregnant and requires them to get counseling from a doctor a day before.

Usually, if the abortion is for a minor, parental consent or a judge’s approval is needed.

A spokeswoman for a pro-abortion organization said the 17-year-old, from Central America, was “counseled” on Thursday.

Federal officials had declined to take her for an abortion or release her to an abortion provider.

HHS had argued to the appeals court, Fox News reported, that its policy was to refuse to facilitate abortions except for “limited circumstances.”

The pro-abortion American Civil Liberties Union found out about the case and took it to court on her behalf.

The conflict highlights the stunning ruling from Chutkan, a Barack Obama nominee, that illegal aliens in the United States have “an unfettered constitutional right” to an abortion.

The judge ruled, “Despite the fact that she’s in this country illegally, she still has constitutional rights.”

The judge argued the girl “will suffer irreparable injury in the form of, at a minimum, increased risk to her health, and perhaps the permanent inability to obtain a desired abortion to which she is legally entitled.”

The teen broke U.S. law when she entered from Mexico without her parents as part of a surge of “unaccompanied alien children” that developed when the Obama administration made it clear that any illegal-alien minors would be granted schooling, health care and other benefits.

HHS itself has said Obama’s administrative decisions “opened the floodgates” to illegal alien children seeking “taxpayer-supported, elective abortions.”

The Washington Times reported Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said allowing the girl to get an elective abortion would turn Texas into “a sanctuary state for abortions.”

“An unlawfully present alien with no substantial ties to this country has no constitutional right to abortion on demand,” he argued to the appeals court after the judge’s ruling.

Chutkan threatened officials with contempt if they did not “comply with the terms of this order.”

The Times reported the government identified 450 pregnant unaccompanied minors in 2015, and 12 of those obtained abortions.

“The Office of Refugee Resettlement paid for six of those. In 2014, five out of 726 pregnant immigrant minors had abortions. Four of those were government-funded – suggesting they were cases such as rape or incest, which are the exceptions in law that allow for taxpayer funding.”

Americans United for Life’s Catherine Foster expressed to the Times her opposition to an “activist judge” declaring “abortion ‘access’ more important than U.S. law and policy that prohibits federal funding and support of elective abortion.”

http://www.wnd.com/2017/10/federal-j...t-to-abortion/

BOOT HER OUT OF HERE!

Appellate Court: Not So Fast On Abortion Order For Illegal-Immigrant Teen

ED MORRISSEY Posted at 3:21 pm on October 19, 2017




Does the US have a duty to provide access for underaged illegal aliens in their custody to obtain abortions? That sounds like a question designed to touch as many culture war hot buttons as possible, but that scenario has played out in Texas and in federal courts this week. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to release her long enough to seek the abortion a 17-year-old detainee seeks after the ACLU took up the case:

SEE ALSO: John Kelly: I was stunned that that Democratic rep would criticize Trump for his condolence call to a war widow;

Update: Dem hits back

In U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on Wednesday ordered administration officials to allow a 17-year-old teenager, identified only as Jane Doe, to be taken to an clinic “promptly and without delay” and receive an abortion Friday or Saturday.

Otherwise, the girl “will suffer irreparable injury in the form of, at a minimum, increased risk to her health, and perhaps the permanent inability to obtain a desired abortion to which she is legally entitled,” the judge ruled.

She is believed to be 14 and 1/2 weeks pregnant and Texas law only allows women to terminate pregnancies before 20 weeks.

Why HHS and not Homeland Security? HHS runs this particular detention facility as part of its jurisdiction over unaccompanied minor illegal aliens. At 17, the teen is on the cusp of that custody, but this case will play out one way or the other before she turns 18 and gets handled as an adult in the system.

According to multiple reports, Chutkan appeared incensed that detention officials managed to have the resources to take the girl to a crisis-pregnancy counseling clinic to talk her out of the abortion, while arguing that they didn’t have the resources to take her to an abortion clinic. The order to immediately allow her access to an abortion appears to have been somewhat punitive. That may explain why the Fifth Circuit put a stay on the ruling while they review the case:

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a judge’s ruling that would have allowed a detained teenager who is in the U.S. illegally to have an abortion, in the latest twist in a legal battle between the ACLU and the Trump administration. …

Federal and state officials have said that because of the young woman’s immigration status, she has no inherent right to an elective abortion in the U.S.

The temporary stay on District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order comes one day after Chutkan “ordered the government to transport the teenager, or allow her guardian to transport her, to have the procedure ‘promptly and without delay,'” as NPR’s Richard Gonzales reported on Wednesday.

In an emergency filing, HHS argued that the teen had other choices, including a return to her legal jurisdiction, and that their policy forbids any facilitation of abortion in all but a few exceptional circumstances:

HHS argued to the appeals court that the department had a policy of “refusing to facilitate abortions” except in “very limited circumstances.” It said the teen could instead ask to be returned to her country of origin. Her lawyers have said she is from Central America and crossed into the United States in September.

That might present the flip side of the “anchor baby” issue. If she’s 15 weeks pregnant now and got here six or seven weeks ago, it’s very likely she knew of her pregnancy and came to the US to have the abortion. HHS argued in the initial case before Chutkan that they have a compelling state interest in avoiding the creation of an incentive for state-facilitated abortion. The ACLU argued that the teen has found benefactors to pay for the abortion and that this does not create an incentive for illegal entry, but given how fast this became a national story, HHS has a point.

The stay does not mean that the court will vacate Chutkan’s ruling, or even indicate any likelihood of doing so, as a temporary injunction might suggest. They want an opportunity to review the case a little more rationally and weigh the circumstances and the consequences.

If courts begin ruling that those who enter the country illegally have a right to be released to access abortion clinics, then perhaps Congress needs to address that in future legislation.

https://hotair.com/archives/2017/10/...mmigrant-teen/

. . . Chutkan countered that the teenager does not need a medical emergency to exercise her right to an abortion. She said the girl had followed state and federal rules: She obtained permission from a state judge in Texas to have an abortion and would cover the expenses herself or with help through her court-appointed guardian. . .