A federal judge on Tuesday threw out an aggressive, unusual lawsuit the Trump administration brought earlier this year against all 15 federal judges in Maryland, rejecting a bid by the Justice Department to limit court power in fast-moving immigration cases.
The opinion on Tuesday framed the lawsuit as a major constitutional standoff, with Judge Thomas Cullen writing the Justice Department couldn’t pursue a “constitutional free-for-all.”
The ruling from Cullen, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump during his first term and brought in from another district to handle the case in Maryland, said the government lacked the legal right — known as standing — to bring the challenge and that the judges are immune from such suits brought by the executive branch.
“Any fair reading of the legal authorities cited by Defendants leads to the ineluctable conclusion that this court has no alternative but to dismiss. To hold otherwise would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law,” Cullen wrote in the 39-page decision.
The Justice Department sued all federal judges on the lower-level District Court of Maryland in late June, after the court’s chief judge put in place a rule that would automatically and temporarily block the Trump administration from removing an immigration detainee from the US if the detainee had gone to court to challenge their removal.
Read the full CNN report.
