Even judge Xinis [kilmar garcia] was talking a big game, but then folded after promising 'expedited discovery' and the consideration of contempt. She delays week after week and grants the executive the right to hide under the shadows under seal so the public can't know what's happening, even though prior she bragged about forcing them to file these updates with the public.

The court folds and folds when they realize they can't actually impose what they ordered. I am taking note. The executive definitely is taking note -- Marc Rubio on live TV angrily taunted the judge.

Some folks speculate that this judge in particular has realized she's either got to keep permitting delays and obvious shenanigans, or she gets to go into the history books as the judge whose case was the breaking point at which the executive went completely, mask-off lawless. Folks suppose she'd prefer someone else get that honor, so is hoping to let the government delay long enough that the case is mooted (because the dude's dead) or another case gets to that point first.

It's a very dangerous game, and she is therefore playing only the safest possible moves with the smallest possible escalation at any point. Perhaps it eventually ends in gunfire, but giving the government hundreds of opportunities to back down before then is safer. Each individual step by the judge has to appear as reasonable as possible so as not to be over-ruled by SCOTUS.

It’s all just appeasement, and will end the same way it always does.

He who dares, wins. And there are a lot of fat cowards out there with zero balls right now.

I guess this is why it's called a constitutional crisis and not a constitutional opportunity

> How do the courts enforce their rulings if the executive branch is wholly beholden to the president?

That's the point of the separation of powers.

separation of powers require the people in gov't to enforce the separation.

If the whitehouse is using federal agents to force an action that is directly contrary to court judgement, those agents should have refused orders tbh. They need to know what separation of power is, and the citizens need to also be outraged regardless of political affiliation.

The problem is that some citizens _are not outraged_ (at least, not enough), and those federal agents are following orders from the whitehouse directly regardless of consequences. So a judge's words right now is only as good as the paper it's written on.

Like I said, that's the point of the separation of powers. Enforcement isn't a power the judiciary has.

I'm not quite clear on how your comment responds to mine?

Supreme court and many other courts have judicial armed officers of the court that are part of the judicial branch; they can enforce contempt or orders of the court. But of course they are way overpowered by the number of LEO in the executive.

> Supreme court and many other courts have judicial armed officers of the court that are part of the judicial branch;

The Supreme Court, but not lower federal courts, has its own police department, but its legal authority is limited to security for the Supreme Court building and grounds and the Supreme Court justices, and to make arrests for violations of federal law as necessary to those two functions. They do not enforce orders of the court unrelated to those functions.

(For lower federal courts, these functions are performed by the US Marshals Service, a DoJ agency, which also does enforce other court orders; but, that's an executive not a judicial-branch agency.)

The other courts in this case would be bailiffs who are judicial officers in some states.