The Trump administration sued all 15 federal district judges in Maryland, claiming they abused their authority by automatically delaying the deportation of any immigrant illegally in the country from the state. The lawsuit escalates the administration’s conflict with the federal judiciary and underscores its intention to aggressively enforce immigration laws.
“Every unlawful order entered by the district courts robs the Executive Branch of its most scarce resource: time to put its policies into effect,” the Department of Justice said in the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, June 24.
By interfering with immigration enforcement, the suit said, the judges diminish the votes of Americans who elected President Donald Trump, “undermining the democratic process.”
Government alleges ‘unlawful restraint’
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The Trump administration says federal district judges approved more nationwide injunctions during the first 100 days of Trump’s second term than during the entire 20th century.
At issue is an order that Chief Judge George L. Russell III signed in May that automatically grants a temporary injunction to any immigrant who files a writ of habeas corpus while in federal detention in Maryland. The order prohibits Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from deporting those migrants or changing their immigration status for as long as two business days while a judge decides whether the case has merit.
Russell wrote that he wanted to prevent “hurried and frustrated hearings” when detained migrants challenged their deportations in the evenings or on weekends and holidays, Reuters reported.
The government filed its lawsuit in the jurisdiction overseen by the judges, stating that immigration officials often must quickly transfer “aliens” apprehended in Maryland due to limited detention space in the state. The suit also said the automatic delay interferes with the government’s negotiations with often “recalcitrant” countries to which migrants are to be deported.
The standing order amounts to an “unlawful restraint” of the president, the lawsuit said.
Increase in nationwide injunctions
The lawsuit follows months of public complaints about federal judges by Trump and other administration officials, who claim the courts lack the authority to contravene presidential decisions.
District courts have “abused their equitable powers … to an unprecedented degree,” issuing nationwide injunctions against the administration on immigration and other matters, the lawsuit said.
It said district judges approved more nationwide injunctions during the first 100 days of Trump’s second term than during the entire 20th century.
“Injunctions against the Executive Branch are particularly extraordinary because they interfere with that democratically accountable branch’s exercise of its constitutional powers,” the lawsuit said.
But Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, said the suit seemed to be an attack on the legitimacy of the federal judiciary.
“I think we are seeing an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to portray district judges not as a coordinate branch of government, but as nothing more than political opposition,” Vladeck told The New York Times.
Judicial immunity?
The government asked the judges in Maryland to recuse themselves from the case. But it is not clear that any judge will allow the lawsuit to proceed.
Federal judges are typically immune from lawsuits over their official acts, Bloomberg Law reported, and this case names each judge in their official capacity.
The Maryland judges have not responded to the lawsuit.
The federal courts in Maryland have been the scene of some of the most dramatic battles over the government’s efforts to fulfill Trump’s campaign pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
One of the judges named in the lawsuit, Paula Xinis, presides over the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was arrested by immigration agents in Maryland on March 12 and deported to his native El Salvador three days later.
Abrego Garcia had lived in Maryland for more than five years. Although he entered the United States illegally, a court had ruled he could not be sent back to El Salvador, where he might face physical danger. Officials called his deportation an “administrative error,” but the administration fought court orders to facilitate his return to the United States. The Justice Department brought him back only after charging him with conspiracy to smuggle other immigrants across the United States. He has pleaded not guilty.
Judge Xinis is considering sanctions against the administration for defying her initial order to bring Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador.
