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Federal judges in Maryland complained Monday that the Trump administration’s lawsuit against their short-term deportation amnesty policy violates the Constitution and insisted they must have wide-ranging powers to stop a president from acting.
The case stems from the judges’ standing order that blocks deportations, for two business days, for any unauthorized immigrant who files a habeas petition in Maryland’s federal court.
The Justice Department sued, saying the court, almost entirely composed of Democratic appointees, was trodding on President Trump’s executive powers to carry out deportations.
But the judges, led by Chief Judge George Russell III, said it’s Mr. Trump who needs to be reined in.
“Immigration officers sometimes violate the law. And when they do, the consequences can be stark,” Andrew Lawrence, the lawyer for the judges, said in their first defense lodged in court on Monday.
He said the court’s policy envisions only a “brief pause” on deportations. The goal, he said, is to make sure the government doesn’t speed deportations before a judge has a chance to issue a substantive ruling.
But the government said the result is automatically blocking the president without any consideration of the specifics of a claim.
Indeed, government lawyers say some unauthorized immigrants who aren’t even in Maryland have already used the process to delay their deportations.
Habeas petitions are narrow but powerful challenges to the government’s arrest and detention.
They are required to be brought in the federal court jurisdiction where someone is being detained, and, if the challenger wins, the result is release from custody.
As the administration ramps up its immigration enforcement, unauthorized immigrants have flooded federal courts with habeas petitions with some success, particularly among Democratic appointed judges.
But the Maryland court’s standing broke new ground — and the Justice Department responded with its lawsuit.
“The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda. This pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing the case last month.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland has 10 active judges and nine of them were appointed by Democrats.
Every one of those judges was named a defendant in the lawsuit, which forced the circuit court of appeals that oversees Maryland to bring in a judge from Virginia to hear the case.
The chief legal issue in the case is whether the judges have the power to issue this sort of blanket administrative stay, blocking a president’s actions, without any chance for argument about the specifics of a case.
The court issued its order after the administration clashed with judges in several courts over speedy deportations that, the judges said, appeared intended to beat looming court orders.
Mr. Lawrence, the lawyer for the Maryland judges, said that can’t stand.
“The executive wields truly awesome powers in the immigration context. A brief pause to ensure that those powers are exercised within the executive’s substantial discretion and within the four corners of the law is plainly in the public interest,” Mr. Lawrence said.
English (US) ·