Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department has subpoenaed all 15 federal district court judges in Maryland for an order suspending any contested deportation in the state for 48 hours. Legal experts described the decision as an unprecedented attack on the independence of the judiciary, while government lawyers said it was necessary to preserve President Trump’s constitutional authority over immigration.
Courts across the country have slowed or blocked many of the president’s actions this year as they considered legal challenges to his agenda, including plans for mass deportations and layoffs of federal employees.
Administration officials have responded to unfavorable rulings by attacking judges or questioning the power of federal courts.
However, the action taken against the Maryland jurists represents a next step. The complaint alleges that Chief Judge George L. Russell III of the U.S. District Court in Maryland issued an “unlawful and antidemocratic” order in May by granting a two-day stay of deportation to any detainee in immigration custody who files a petition for habeas corpus, or a legal challenge for unlawful detention.
As the legal basis for his order, Russell cited a federal law, the All Writs Act, and a 1966 Supreme Court precedent that gives judges “limited power to preserve the court’s jurisdiction,” using injunctions to block government actions until the court can review them.
Instead, the Justice Department argued that under other Supreme Court precedents, the justices must rule on each case individually. Russell’s standing order does “exactly what the Supreme Court has prohibited,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit filed against the Maryland magistrates has been criticized by several Democrats, including the state’s governor, Wes Moore, who said: “After blatantly violating judicial orders, and directing personal attacks on individual judges, the White House is turning our Constitution on its head by suing judges themselves. This unprecedented action is a transparent effort to intimidate judges and usurp the power of the courts.”
Maryland judges have ruled on a number of important cases this year, suspending a number of Trump initiatives and finding several violations of law in the flurry of executive orders and actions by the administration on immigration, federal employee purges, and termination of medical care for transgender youth.
13 of the 15 federal judges serving in Maryland were appointed by Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Joe Biden, all Democrats. The other two, however, were appointed by Republicans, one by Trump and the other by George W. Bush.
“The president and his attorney general will continue their ruthless attack on the federal Judiciary and the Rule of Law until the Supreme Court of the United States at least attempts to stop them, because they are winning their war,” said retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit from 1991 to 2006, “It is reckless and irresponsible and yet another direct frontal assault on the federal courts of this country”.
