Free Republic

A Biden-appointed federal judge on Friday became the second jurist in Massachusetts to block the Trump administration's effort to end temporary protected status for migrant groups, fueling a growing clash over whether lower courts are ignoring a recent Supreme Court ruling that narrowed their authority over such decisions. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts issued an administrative stay in African Communities Together v. Mullin, temporarily preserving TPS protections for Ethiopian nationals while the court considers whether plaintiffs may pursue constitutional claims in light of the Supreme Court's June ruling. In a 6-3 decision in Mullin v....

A criminal who hijacked a plane from Cuba to Florida in 2003 and served 20 years in prison had been in ICE custody awaiting deportation — till a Dem-appointed judge dumped him back on the street last week. Cuban national Miakel Guerra Morales — who assaulted crew members during his terrifying midair hijacking — was detained by ICE in December, then ordered freed July 8 by Florida Judge John E. Steele, who said he’d been in custody too long. The Department of Homeland Security on Monday railed against the Bill Clinton-nominated federal judge’s decision to release Guerra Morales. “This activist...

A federal judge on Monday nullified an agreement the government reached with Donald Trump and his sons over the leak of his tax returns. The judge lambasted the government and president’s lawyers for using the judicial process to try to concoct a beneficial arrangement for the president. The ruling from US district judge Kathleen Williams in the southern district of Florida blocks a widely criticized arrangement the government and the president’s attorneys reached earlier this year to resolve a $10bn lawsuit by Trump and his sons over the leak of the president’s tax returns. The government never responded to the...

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld an Illinois ban on semiautomatic weapons, keeping in place a law passed largely in response to a deadly Independence Day parade shooting. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturns a lower court decision that found the ban unconstitutional. The 2-1 appellate decision found that the Illinois law does not violate the Second Amendment, and its restrictions are "consistent with the principles that underpin our Nation's tradition of firearm regulation." "Whether to adopt them is thus a decision reposed in our elected representatives, and we reverse," the appeals...

A federal appeals court struck down the higher education restrictions of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” that restricts critical race theory (CRT) indoctrination in the state’s public colleges and universities. Breitbart News reports that the ruling pertains to the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (Stop WOKE Act), which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed in 2022. CRT is a Marxist ideology which “claims that all of our institutions — our government, our economy, our culture — are based on racial hierarchy, with whites on top and blacks at the bottom. Even things that look race-neutral are, on closer...

NEW YORK (AP) — The writer E. Jean Carroll can collect $5.8 million held in escrow since a jury found that President Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed her, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Trump’s lawyers immediately asked a court to block the payment while they appeal.The president has already deposited the money in an account. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the 2023 civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money. The initial $5 million award has grown with interest.The jury found Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in the dressing room of...

A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration’s push to attach anti-DEI strings to federal grant money. The court ruled this week that the executive branch overstepped its constitutional authority by imposing the conditions on a group of West Coast cities and counties. U.S. District Judge William Orrick granted a preliminary injunction Thursday barring the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and the Interior from enforcing the contested conditions against 11 local governments, concluding in a 68-page order that the restrictions likely run afoul of both the separation-of-powers doctrine and the Administrative Procedure Act. “What defendants seek to do...

An appeals court on Tuesday ruled that part of Florida’s law restricting how race and gender are taught in classrooms, specifically provisions restricting how those topics are taught in colleges, violates free speech rights. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit determined part of the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act, or Stop WOKE Act, signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2022 is unlawful. The law was designed to restrict public universities, K-12 schools and private workplaces from promoting certain concepts related to racism, gender and systemic privilege. This week’s...

A federal judge in Ohio has ordered the Trump administration to resume processing certain immigration benefit applications, delivering the latest legal setback to a broader effort by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to freeze or delay immigration cases. U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley granted a preliminary injunction Monday in a case brought by 25 foreign nationals who said their applications for work authorization, green cards and other immigration benefits had been stalled under USCIS and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies tied to countries covered by President Donald Trump's travel restrictions. The decision could affect immigrants seeking green...

Massachusetts US District Judge Myong Joun struck down the Trump Administration's attempt to disallow public service workers from receiving debt relief for working with employers that are deemed to have a "substantial illegal purpose." The Judge said that "the Biden Administration classified student debtors working with organizations like USAID as eligible for debt forgiveness. Later evidence indicating that some of these employers were engaged in efforts to promote illegal immigration and terrorists cells cannot undo the promised debt relief. Trying to single out these activities for punitive action can be seen as an impermissible suppression of their right to freedom...

A federal judge is again directing the Justice Department to formally address whether the Trump administration's "Anti-Weaponization Fund" is dead, as the agency has claimed. The order, filed Wednesday by District Judge Leonie Brinkema, comes after the Justice Department refused to issue a signed declaration verifying the $1.8 billion fund was not moving forward. In her order, Brinkema said she is not satisfied with the DOJ's contention that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's recent testimony before Congress is proof enough that the fund is dead. "That the defendants have refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations...

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Philadelphia ​from enforcing a new city law that would have prohibited federal law enforcement agents ‌from wearing masks, ruling the city cannot dictate how they conduct operations amid a national debate over masked immigration agents carrying out arrests. U.S. District Judge Chad Kenney, at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, issued a ​preliminary injunction, opens new tab barring Philadelphia from enforcing key provisions of the law against federal officers ​before they are scheduled to take effect on Tuesday. Philadelphia’s mask ban was enacted ⁠earlier this year as part of a larger “ICE...

A progressive protest group has been flying an 8647 flag on federal land near the National Mall, aimed squarely at the President of the United States. The National Park Service called it a true threat and moved to shut it down. An Obama-appointed federal judge just told the government to leave it alone. On June 29, 2026, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss, appointed by Barack Obama, granted summary judgment to Accountability NOW USA and entered a permanent injunction against the Park Service and Interior officials. The order blocks the government from revoking the group’s demonstration permit or seizing and...

REUTERS—A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed restrictions on mail-in voting, finding that they violated a settlement with a leading civil rights group that required expedited mail-in ballot handling. The decision by Washington-based U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan marked the second defeat in the courts in as many weeks for U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to severely restrict mail-in voting ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with his Republican Party locked in a tight battle to maintain control of both houses of Congress. The Postal Service in May proposed a rule requiring states to provide...

A federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon's policy requiring escorts for reporters. US District Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee, sided with the New York Times and blocked the Pentagon from enforcing its policy requiring the reporters to be accompanied by an official escort. The judge's injunction only applies to reporters with the New York Times. Politico reported: A federal district court judge on Tuesday blocked the Defense Department from requiring journalists to be accompanied by an official escort in the Pentagon, siding with The New York Times in its latest legal fight with the...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday blocked the Trump administration from immediately moving forward with its plan to dramatically slash the bloated workforce at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) by roughly two-thirds. This is the latest chapter in the ongoing war between President Trump’s mandate to drain the swamp and the entrenched bureaucracy that refuses to die. The D.C. Circuit granted the administration’s motion to send the case back to the district court for further review of an earlier injunction, but they flat-out refused to lift the stay preventing the workforce reductions...

A Tennessee state court judge temporarily blocked on Monday Republican Governor Bill Lee's deployment of National Guard troops to the city of Memphis, ruling that the use of troops was likely not legal under the state's militia law. Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal of the Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville said the militia law required Tennessee's General Assembly to call in the National Guard for public safety. She ruled that crime rates in Memphis were not a "grave emergency" or "disaster" that would authorize Lee to send troops in his role as commander-in-chief of the state’s military forces. Her order...

A federal judge on Friday blocked the IRS from giving ICE the home addresses of taxpayers who might be undocumented immigrants — dealing a blow to the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. The ruling is a significant victory for immigrant-rights group and liberal activists who are trying to resist the mass deportations that President Donald Trump has made a top priority for the first year of his second term. The Trump administration can appeal the decision, and it has a decent track record this year of overturning lower-court losses. A separate federal judge in a related case previously declined to...

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy that sought to require members of Congress to submit requests a week before visiting and inspecting Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the policy likely violated an appropriations law passed by Congress saying that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, cannot use funds to require lawmakers in Congress to "provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility" to conduct oversight. That DHS policy, announced in June, said members of Congress should file requests to inspect ICE facilities...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must stop requiring that grant applications not include terms related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including the term “pregnant people,” under a new order from a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez, based in Seattle, said in the Jan. 5 ruling that plaintiffs in the case provided examples of harm related to instructions on grant applications from HHS. He ordered the government to stop enforcing a requirement that applicants certify they would not “operate any programs that advance or promote DEI ... or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal...