Free Republic

A sleazy bid by a federal judge to defy the Supreme Court’s decision on Team Trump deportations shows exactly why the ruling was necessary in the first place. On Monday, the justices stayed a preliminary injunction by District Judge Brian Murphy (a Biden appointee) that had blocked the Trump folks from deporting migrants to countries they didn’t come from without sufficient time to appeal. That should’ve been an immediate green light for the feds to deport eight criminal migrants to South Sudan, even though seven of the men originate from other countries. Yet Murphy flipped the high court a bird,...

Federal prosecutors say Judge Hannah C. Dugan helped the man evade immigration agents who were waiting in a Milwaukee courthouse to arrest him. Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, became an inadvertent figure in the debate over immigration enforcement when federal prosecutors charged a Milwaukee judge this spring with obstruction and said she had helped him evade immigration officials.On Monday, a plea agreement was made public in the immigration case against Mr. Flores-Ruiz. The documents, signed on June 20, say he has agreed to plead guilty to entering the United States illegally after being removed from the country in...

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to stop Harvard University from hosting foreign nationals on student visas. US District Judge Allison Burroughs’s preliminary injunction extends a temporary block she issued last month, which prevented the Trump administration from revoking the Ivy League school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification. The certification allows Harvard to host roughly 7,000 international students – about 27% of the school’s total enrollment. The injunction will remain in effect until the underlying case is decided, the Obama-appointed judge ruled. The ruling marks another legal victory for the Cambridge, Massachusetts school as...

A federal judge in California has halted the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) Hub, formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC). In a June 13 order, US District Judge Susan Illston declared that the planned elimination of the unit, part of a broader push by the administration to downsize the federal government, violates an earlier injunction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio may have prematurely celebrated the end of R-FIMI back in April when he said the censorship unit was “dead.” Despite his announcement, legal barriers remain in place, preserving...

A federal judge in Maryland on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump lacked the authority to fire three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and ordered their reinstatement — teeing up another high-stakes court clash centered on Trump's ability as commander-in-chief to remove or otherwise control the members of independent agencies. U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox, a Biden appointee, sided with the three ousted members of the board — Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr. — in ruling that their firings were unlawful and ordered all three members to be reinstated to their posts. In...

BOSTON – A federal judge in Boston on Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump from barring US entry of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs at Harvard University. Under a two-page temporary restraining order granted to Harvard, US District Judge Allison Burroughs enjoined Trump’s proclamation from taking effect pending further litigation of the matter amid an escalating dispute between the Ivy League school and Republican president. The judge ruled that Trump’s directive prohibiting foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard for the next six months would cause “immediate and irreparable injury”...

Activist judges like Judge Boasberg are are issuing blatantly unlawful nationwide injunctions. It’s not judicial review, it’s judicial sabotage.

A bipartisan group of more than 130 retired judges filed a brief Friday urging a federal court to drop charges against Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan, saying her arrest undermines "centuries of precedent on judicial immunity." Dugan, a Milwaukee County circuit court judge, was arrested April 25 by FBI agents on federal allegations she prevented the arrest of a man by immigration authorities during a federal law enforcement operation at her courthouse. The man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, was arrested and detained at an immigration detention center. In an amicus brief filed Friday, the group of judges argue that Dugan shouldn't be prosecuted...

A U.S. federal judge has inflicted another blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to end a multiple Biden-era parole program for hundreds of thousands of migrants*** U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to resume processing applications from those migrants who are seeking work permits or renewing their status. Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, rejected the Trump administration's claim that suspending the parole programs was within its broad discretion to direct immigration policy. Federal law still requires agencies under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to follow a lengthy process for...

A team from the Department of Government Efficiency can now access a sensitive Treasury Department system that controls trillions of dollars in federal payments, a judge ruled late Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas gave permission for four DOGE employees to access the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which essentially serves as the checkbook for the federal government. Vargas said she would no longer require the Trump administration to get permission from the court before expanding access to other DOGE representatives.

MADISON, WI -- The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended Dane County Judge Ellen Berz for a week following a complaint brought by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission. Berz will be suspended without pay starting June 26. The Commission alleged that Berz violated multiple parts of the Code of Judicial Ethics and then admitted to said violations. The Commission specifically referenced two incidents, one on May 31, 2019 and another on Dec. 13, 2021, in its complaint against Berz. During the 2019 incident, Berz allegedly used sarcasm towards a defendant and admonished him for asking to move a trial date saying...

U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman issued the stay. A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from withholding funds to New York City over its opposition to a congestion traffic pricing program that Washington says is more about raising money than addressing congestion.U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman issued the stay, Reuters reported. The program has seen the city charge most vehicles a $9 toll to enter the Big Apple during periods of high traffic.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, however, has said the program appears "driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority system as opposed...

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily thwarted the Trump administration’s bid to kill Manhattan’s congestion pricing — ensuring the controversial program will stay in place until at least next month. US District Judge Lewis Liman issued a restraining order that prevents the US Transportation Department from fining or punishing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as the court battle over the toll rages on. The ruling came down just one day before Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had threatened that the government could start withholding federal funding and approvals for New York projects if the toll wasn’t nixed. We’ve won — again,” Gov....

[Judge Allison Burroughs] has temporarily paused the Trump administration's move to cancel Harvard's student visa program. Harvard filed suit against the Trump administration over the policy, and a judge granted its request for a temporary restraining order to preserve status quo while the case plays out in court. Judge Allison Burroughs, a 2014 Obama appointee, set a hearing for 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday in Boston federal court. Harvard said the policy will affect more than 7,000 visa holders — nearly a quarter of the student body — and is a "blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause,...

The Trump administration “unquestionably” violated a court order when it put eight migrants with violent criminal convictions onto a flight to South Sudan, a Biden-nominated federal judge ruled Wednesday. US District Judge Brian Murphy, who was nominated to the seat by former President Joe Biden in 2024, slammed the White House for failing to provide the men with adequate due process when ordering them on a flight bound to the African nation, of which only one of them is actually from. “The department actions in this case are unquestionably in violation of this court’s order,” the judge said in an...

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis excoriated Trump administration lawyers Friday in a remarkable status hearing centered on Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorian migrant and alleged MS-13 member who was deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March in what administration officials have acknowledged was an administrative error. The heated back-and-forth was full of eye-popping exchanges between the judge and the Justice Department, as she took umbrage with their attempts to invoke the state secrets privilege to shield details concerning Abrego Garcia from the court. "What world are we living in," Xinis asked in disbelief after more than two hours...

Former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro announced the latest criminal indictment and sentences in Washington, D.C., in her first act as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, marking the start of her interim appointment by President Donald Trump. On the same day she was sworn into office, Pirro unveiled on Wednesday evening the punishment for two men who carried out a broad-daylight drive-by shooting near a D.C. elementary school. Rasheed Mullins, 27, and Josiah Warfield, 24, were each sentenced to over seven years in federal prison for their roles in the April 2024 shooting. Mullins received 90 months; Warfield...

On Monday, a federal judge in the Western District of Washington issued an order setting forth a "compliance framework" for the Trump administration to follow in order to adhere to his previously entered preliminary injunction. That framework will require the administration to begin processing roughly 12,000 refugees by next Monday. It's the latest development in a series of back-and-forth court rulings and moves that have begun to seem a bit like a Ping-Pong match. A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to immediately resettle some 12,000 refugees into the U.S. under a court order that partially blocks President...

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday indefinitely blocked the Trump Administration from deporting Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. In his order granting a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of the Alien Enemies Act in his district, Judge Hellerstein said illegal aliens have the same due process rights as American citizens. “This nation was founded on the “self-evident” truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [and] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Declaration of Independence, at ¶ 2...

Second only to President Donald Trump's historic first 100 days of his second term, from a newsworthy perspective, has been the voracity with which Democrat-nominated federal district judges have attempted — unconstitutionally so — to obstruct this president at every politically driven opportunity.On Thursday, Trump took the first step of his second term to right the federal district court system.In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced his nomination of Whitney Hermandorfer to serve as a judge on the Cincinnati-based Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which hears cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. I am pleased to...