Thread by @matt_cam

#Immigrationcourts were not moved to DHS because of WHAT NOW

#AbolishDHS

THE PERSON LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ORGANIZING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY DID NOT KNOW THAT IMMIGRATION JUDGES WERE A THING

There is a lot going on in this excerpt, but I may never recover from that gobsmacking punchline

This excerpt is from this 2011 Cato Institute report on why it's time to #AbolishDHS

cato.org/sites/cato.org…

which accurately cites this Washington Post story

washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…

To be clear, moving immigration courts to DHS would have been an unequivocal disaster--keeping them in DOJ preserves at least an illusion of independence--but that's not so much the point as that it was apparently only an accident that they were overlooked in the first instance

Also, don't sleep on the part where this guy also accidentally gave DHS the ability to develop thermonuclear weapons literally because he just thought it "would be nice" to give them whatever extra labs the federal government might have kicking around

This was all of course under G.W. Bush, whose administration the Trumpsters are now making seem *extremely* competent. We're so boned.

Discovered this while researching my next
@NewRepublic piece, & while this report rules I still haven't found the thing I wanted: a remark from GWB's cabinet (Rice, maybe?) that bringing DOJ into DHS would directly mirror the govt of the Third Reich. Sound familiar to anyone?