U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, said the child — identified in court papers by the initials “V.M.L.” — appeared to have been released in Honduras earlier Friday, along with her Honduran-born mother and sister, who had been detained by immigration officials earlier in the week

Lawyers for the guardian told the court that V.M.L.’s father had been attempting to contact the girl’s mother to discuss plans for their child but ICE officials denied him the chance to have a substantive phone call. He says ICE allowed the two to speak for about one minute on Tuesday, while the mother was in ICE custody, but that they were unable to make any meaningful decisions about their child.

“The guardian” in that quoted paragraph refers to a friend of the girl’s father, who he sent to pick up his daughter from the ICE detention center

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      Doughty’s sharp criticism of the Trump administration is particularly notable because he issued a series of major decisions in favor of Trump and his allies in recent years, most notably backing conservatives in legal challenges to the Biden administration’s efforts to rein in what it claimed was misinformation on social media platforms about vaccines and certain politically charged topics.

      Indeed, some conservatives considered Doughty so likely to be in their camp that they filed lawsuits in his judicial division in order to have a strong chance the cases would be assigned to him.

      Even as Doughty made clear that he was disturbed by the government’s actions, in his order Friday the judge seemed to tip his hat to the president, adopting the term “Gulf of America” for the body of water traditionally known as the Gulf of Mexico.

      100% fucking coward energy