OA1303 - Rapid Response Friday kicks off with two major under-the-radar stories that you may not hear anywhere else about major federal decisions out of Florida and Massachusetts which may remove two important tools from Trump's fascist toolbox. We also explain how the subject of Matt's exclusive OA report from the front lines of deportation defense last July on how ICE was trying to rewrite the law of mandatory ICE detention has just become the single most important immigration case in the Supreme Court's coming term.
Finally, Matt goes gorilla mode for today's footnote to share the story of how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went ape on a Mexican zookeeper in one of the wildest cases of federal entrapment in American history.
Cases discussed:
- Opinion and Order in Maria L and Nancy M. v. Mullin (9/30/26)
- SDFL judge David Bernstein’s order dismissing U.S. v. Cox (10/1/2026)
- Order in Barbosa de Cunha v. Freden, (2nd Cir., 4/28/26)
- “ICE Just… Decided that Millions of People Are Ineligible for Bail. This is Bad. Like, Really Bad.” Opening Arguments, OA1174 (July 18, 2026)
- “U.S. Agent in Gorilla Suit Catches Primate Smugglers,” LA Times (1/27/1993)
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