Judge Stanley Marcus sat in a Miami courtroom on Wednesday and told the President he is not a king. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government cannot hold migrants indefinitely without the possibility of bond. Marcus wrote that the language chosen by Congress "does not grant to the Executive unfettered authority" to lock people up forever. This decision adds to a nationwide circuit split as hundreds of migrants file habeas corpus petitions to escape mandatory detention.

The timing is a terminal irony. The Department of Homeland Security has defaulted on the payroll of 240,000 civilian employees. The administration tries to expand its cage, but it can no longer afford to pay the jailers. The hollow state is failing on two fronts. It is losing its legal authority in court. It is losing its physical capacity to govern in the payroll office. Judge Marcus’s ruling exposes the fragility of the entire enforcement machine.

The judiciary is attempting to restrain an executive branch that is already bankrupt. If the government cannot pay its workers, its "mandatory detention" is nothing more than a paper threat. The migrants contesting their detention are fighting a ghost. This is the state of the hollow republic: an administration issuing illegal orders it cannot afford to execute, while 240,000 workers go home to empty bank accounts.