Sessions, Nielsen Ordered to Face Judge If Deportation Not Reversed

A federal judge ordered U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the secretary of homeland security to personally appear before him if the government fails to return a mother and her daughter who were deported to El Salvador while the judge was considering their fate.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan took the extraordinary step of holding two members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet personally accountable for an immigration proceeding after Sullivan learned while a hearing in his court was underway Thursday that government officials put the mother and daughter on an airplane.

Sullivan directed Sesssions and Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to appear in his courtroom with their lawyers if they don’t comply with his order to return the immigrants.

“We are complying with the court’s order, and upon arrival in El Salvador, the plaintiffs will not disembark and will be promptly returned to the United States,” a homeland security official told Bloomberg news