Trump administration sues all 15 Maryland federal judges over order
blocking removal of immigrants
[June 26, 2025]
By SUDHIN THANAWALA
The Trump administration on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against all 15
federal judges in Maryland over an order blocking the immediate
deportation of migrants challenging their removals, ratcheting up a
fight with the federal judiciary over President Donald Trump's executive
powers.
The remarkable action lays bare the administration’s determination to
exert its will over immigration enforcement as well as a growing
exasperation with federal judges who have time and again turned aside
executive branch actions they see as lawless and without legal merit.
“It's extraordinary," Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School,
said of the Justice Department's lawsuit. “And it's escalating DOJ's
effort to challenge federal judges.”
At issue is an order signed by Chief Judge George L. Russell III and
filed in May blocking the administration from immediately removing from
the U.S. any immigrants who file paperwork with the Maryland district
court seeking a review of their detention. The order blocks the removal
until 4 p.m. on the second business day after the habeas corpus petition
is filed.
The administration says the automatic pause on removals violates a
Supreme Court ruling and impedes the president’s authority to enforce
immigration laws.
The Republican administration has been locked for weeks in a growing
showdown with the federal judiciary amid a barrage of legal challenges
to the president's efforts to carry out key priorities around
immigration and other matters. The Justice Department has grown
increasingly frustrated by rulings blocking the president's agenda,
accusing judges of improperly impeding the president's powers.
"President Trump’s executive authority has been undermined since the
first hours of his presidency by an endless barrage of injunctions
designed to halt his agenda,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a
statement Wednesday. “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.”
A spokesman for the Maryland district court declined to comment.
Trump has railed against unfavorable judicial rulings, and in one case
called for the impeachment of a federal judge in Washington who ordered
planeloads of deported immigrants to be turned around. That led to an
extraordinary statement from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts,
who said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement
concerning a judicial decision.”
Among the judges named in the lawsuit is Paula Xinis, who has called the
administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador
illegal. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have asked Xinis to impose fines
against the administration for contempt, arguing that it ignored court
orders for weeks to return him to the U.S.
[to top of second column]
|
Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies during a Senate Appropriations
Committee hearing on the President's Fiscal Year 2026 Budget on
Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam
Zuhaib)
The order signed by Russell says it aims to maintain existing
conditions and the potential jurisdiction of the court, ensure
immigrant petitioners are able to participate in court proceedings
and access attorneys and give the government “fulsome opportunity to
brief and present arguments in its defense.”
In an amended order, Russell said the court had received an influx
of habeas petitions after hours that "resulted in hurried and
frustrating hearings in that obtaining clear and concrete
information about the location and status of the petitioners is
elusive.”
The Trump administration has asked the Maryland judges to recuse
themselves from the case. It wants a clerk to have a federal judge
from another state hear it.
James Sample, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University,
described the lawsuit as further part of the erosion of legal norms
by the administration. Normally when parties are on the losing side
of an injunction, they appeal the order — not sue the court or
judges, he said.
On one hand, he said, the Justice Department has a point that
injunctions should be considered extraordinary relief; it’s unusual
for them to be granted automatically in an entire class of cases.
But, he added, it’s the administration’s own actions in repeatedly
moving detainees to prevent them from obtaining writs of habeas
corpus that prompted the court to issue the order.
“The judges here didn’t ask to be put in this unenviable position,”
Sample said. “Faced with imperfect options, they have made an
entirely reasonable, cautious choice to modestly check an executive
branch that is determined to circumvent any semblance of impartial
process.”
___
Associated Press reporters Gene Johnson in Seattle and Eric Tucker
and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
