BALTIMORE (AP) — A judge on Wednesday questioned why it was necessary for the Trump administration to sue Maryland’s entire federal bench over an order that paused the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen didn’t issue a ruling following a hearing in federal court in Baltimore, but he expressed skepticism about the administration’s extraordinary legal maneuver, which attorneys for the Maryland judges called completely unprecedented.
Cullen serves in the Western District of Virginia, but he was tapped to oversee the Baltimore case because all of Maryland’s 15 federal judges are named as defendants, a highly unusual circumstance that reflects the Republican administration’s aggressive response to courts that slow or stop its policies.
At issue in the lawsuit is an order signed by Chief Maryland District Judge George L. Russell III that prevents the administration from immediately deporting any immigrants seeking review of their detention in a Maryland federal court. The order blocks their removal until 4 p.m. on the second business day after their habeas corpus petition is filed.
The Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit in June, says the automatic pause impedes President Donald Trump’s authority to enforce immigration laws.
But attorneys for the judges argue the lawsuit was intended to limit the power of the judiciary to review certain immigration proceedings while the administration pursues a mass deportation agenda.
“The executive branch seeks to bring suit in the name of the United States against a co-equal branch of government,” attorney Paul Clement said during Wednesday’s hearing. “There really is no precursor for this suit”
Clement listed several other avenues the administration could have taken to challenge the order, such as filing an appeal in an individual habeas case.
Cullen also asked the government’s attorneys whether they had considered that alternative, which he said could have been more expeditious than suing all the judges. He also questioned what would happen if the administration accelerated its current approach and sued a federal appellate bench, or even the Supreme Court.
“I think you probably picked up on the fact that I have some skepticism,” Cullen told Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Themins Hedges when she stood to present the Trump administration's case.
Hedges denied that the case would “open the floodgates” to similar lawsuits. She said the government is simply seeking relief from a legal roadblock preventing effective immigration enforcement.
“The United States is a plaintiff here because the United States is being harmed,” she said.
Cullen, who was nominated to the federal bench by Trump in 2019, said he would issue a ruling by Labor Day on whether to dismiss the lawsuit. If allowed to proceed, he could also grant the government’s request for a preliminary injunction that would block the Maryland federal bench from following the conditions of the chief judge’s order.
The automatic pause in deportation proceedings sought 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,” according to the order.
Russell also 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.” Habeas petitions allow people to challenge their detention by the government.
The administration accused Maryland judges of prioritizing a regular schedule, saying in court documents that “a sense of frustration and a desire for greater convenience do not give Defendants license to flout the law.”
Among the judges named in the lawsuit is Paula Xinis, who found the administration illegally deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March — a case that quickly became a flashpoint in Trump’s immigration crackdown. Abrego Garcia was held in a notorious Salvadoran megaprison, where he claims to have been beaten and tortured.
The administration later brought Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. and charged him with human smuggling in Tennessee. His attorneys characterized the charge as an attempt to justify his erroneous deportation. Xinis recently prohibited the administration from taking Abrego Garcia into immediate immigration custody if he’s released from jail pending trial.