Replies

It was GAO that found them improperly appointed. That’s the US Congress. And GAO (Congress) pursued a judicial affirmation.

I must give you credit. You are very consistent. You are wrong, yet again!

"Immigrant advocacy groups sued the administration last year on behalf of five Honduran asylum seekers — two adults and three children — who challenged the legality of the new restrictions on multiple grounds. Moss’s ruling addressed the first of their claims: that Cuccinelli lacked the authority to change U.S. asylum policies in the first place.
Moss agreed, writing that the vacancy rules require a federal agency’s “first assistant” to assume leadership when the top job is open."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ken-cuccinellis-appointment-to-top-immigration-job-was-unlawful-court-rules-invalidating-policy-memos-he-signed/2020/03/01/fdc7fda0-5bea-11ea-8baf-519cedb6ccd9_story.html

"The judge described an illegitimate shuffling of leadership chairs at the Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for immigration enforcement, for the predicament of Wolf's leadership and that of his predecessor, Kevin McAleenan. "Based on the plain text of the operative order of succession," Garaufis wrote in the Saturday ruling, "neither Mr. McAleenan nor, in turn, Mr. Wolf, possessed statutory authority to serve as Acting Secretary. Therefore the Wolf Memorandum was not an exercise of legal authority."
The ruling is part of an ongoing case with DACA recipient Martín Jonathan Batalla Vidal serving as the lead plaintiff in a six-plaintiff case against Wolf and the Department of Homeland Security. The suit initially challenged the state of Texas' attempt to thwart DACA.
On Saturday the National Immigration Law Center responded to the ruling on Twitter: "VICTORY!""
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-judge-rules-acting-dhs-head-chad-wolf-unlawfully-appointed-n1247848

It was the GAO that brought the original suit, at the urging of the US congress (particularly, Nadler).

Once the decision was made, the judge had no choice but to find for the Hondurans.

It was the plenary power of congress that found the appointments illegal, and therefore all their subsequent actions illegal.

IF congress had decided to let the appointments stand, there would have been no legal issue. Certainly no judge or court would have been empowered to unilaterally intervene.