The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the entire federal district court of Maryland on Tuesday.
The lawsuit challenges a standing order issued by the court to automatically block the deportation of any illegal migrant who files a petition for writ of habeas corpus. It names all 15 judges, as well as the court clerk, as defendants.
“Defendants’ automatic injunction issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be,” the lawsuit states. “And it does so in the immigration context, thus intruding on core Executive Branch powers.”
Chief Judge George L. Russell III, an Obama appointee, issued a standing order in May to block the administration from “removing Petitioners in such cases from the continental United States or altering their legal status.” The order remains in place until 4:00 pm on the second business day after a migrant files, unless extended by the judge.
District courts have “used and abused their equitable powers to interfere with the prerogatives of the Executive Branch to an unprecedented degree” in recent months and years, the lawsuit states.
“In the first 100 days of President Trump’s current Term, district courts have entered more nationwide injunctions than in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000, requiring the Supreme Court to intervene again and again in recent weeks to pause the unlawful restraint of the President’s exercise of core Article II powers,” the lawsuit states. “This lawsuit involves yet another regrettable example of the unlawful use of equitable powers to restrain the Executive.”
DOJ spokesman Chad Gilmartin wrote on X that this is the department’s latest action to “rein in unlawful judicial overreach.”
“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 Pam 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.”
The Trump administration accused a federal district court judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday of “unprecedented defiance” of the Supreme Court. Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, directed the administration not to move a group of eight migrants hours after the Supreme Court allowed “third country” deportations to move forward.
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