Editorial: Trump keeps implementing incompetent zero-tolerance immigration policies. He also keeps losing in court

A Guatemalan father and son, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, are apprehended by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in San Diego on June 28. In yet another sign of how recklessly President Trump has plowed forward on immigration, a federal judge ruled Monday that, no, the president cannot scrap a 20-year-old legal settlement designed to prevent children from being locked up indefinitely in immigration jails. The Trump administration had asked U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee to change the so-called Flores settlement, which bars the government from holding undocumented children in detention centers for more than 20 days, with or without their parents. In her ruling, Gee said the administration’s move to change the settlement was a “cynical attempt” to shift immigration policy-making to the courts after “over 20 years of Congressional inaction and ill-considered executive action that have led to the current stalemate.” Ill-considered, indeed. Earlier this year, the administration began criminally charging all adults entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico and separating them from their children under the inane assumption that such a policy would deter immigrants fleeing violence and corruption.