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A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump from implementing an executive order that requires voters to show documentation proving their U.S. citizenship to cast a ballot in federal elections. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Trump administration from going forward with the proof-of-citizenship requirements as a lawsuit plays out, the Associated Press reported. The lawsuit, filed by the Democratic National Committee and leftist voting rights groups, claims that Trump’s order is “an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans.”

Two Democrat-appointed federal judges have extended temporary blocks on the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport criminal illegal aliens. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has extended an April 9 order for another two weeks that bars the Trump administration from deporting illegal aliens being held in Southern District of New York without first providing them with an opportunity for a hearing. During a hearing Tuesday, Hellerstein, a President Bill Clinton appointee, criticized the Trump administration for its approach to deportations. “This is not the Inquisition, it’s not medieval times,” Hellerstein said. Until the New York court...

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Denver, Colorado, blocked another round of potential deportations under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA). US District Judge Charlotte Sweeney, a Biden appointee, granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the removal of aliens from the district of Colorado. The anti-American ACLU and the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network said during a hearing on Monday that two Venezuelan illegals were facing deportation to El Salvador’s CECOT prison under the Alien Enemies Act. ..... Snip..... The judge also said the Alien Enemies Act doesn’t apply to this case because the United States is not at war...

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday extended his block on removal of Tren de Aragua gang members facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 91-year-old Clinton appointee, blasted DOJ lawyers during a hearing on Tuesday and accused them throwing people out of the US “because of their tattoos.” Earlier this month Hellerstein blocked the removal of two alleged Tren de Aragua gang members in New York.

Saturday evening, I published three posts on A.A.R.P. v. Trump. Around midnight eastern time, Justice Alito issued his dissent, which was joined only by Justice Thomas. The dissent begins: "Shortly after midnight yesterday, the Court hastily and prematurely granted unprecedented emergency relief." He is correct. Justice Alito lists seven bullets which demonstrates why this order was problematic. The first bullet argues that it is unclear the Court had jurisdiction: It is not clear that the Court had jurisdiction. The All Writs Act does not provide an independent grant of jurisdiction. See 28 U. S. C. §1651(a) (permitting writs "necessary or...

A federal judge has ruled against censured Maine State Rep Laurel Libby, siding with State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau. Libby filed a federal lawsuit after she was censored in the House chamber over a social media post that depicted a high school trans-identified male winning the state championship, despite President Donald Trump’s order banning trans-identified males competing in women’s sports. District Judge Melissa R. DuBose wrote in her ruling, "After carefully considering the case law, the details presented by the parties about the House governing rules, and the process by which the House adopted the Resolution and imposed the censure...

President Trump’s immigration policy, like most of his foreign policy, is saturated with references to his campaign slogan “America First,” and a federal judge this week said it shows illegal and racist “animus” toward immigrants.Judge Edward Chen blocked the Department of Homeland Security from revoking a special deportation amnesty for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, at least in part because Secretary Kristi Noem justified the decision by citing Mr. Trump’s “America First” agenda. Judge Chen, an Obama appointee to the court in Northern California, said the term had an “inference of animus given the historical connotation of that phrase.”...

A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from terminating funding for legal counsel for unaccompanied migrant minors. Appointed by former President Joe Biden, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order on Tuesday that will stop the Trump administration from ending the funding while the merits of the underlying case play out. In her Tuesday order, Martínez-Olguín said that advocates had raised legitimate questions about whether the administration violated the 2008 law, warranting a return to the status quo while the case continues. The Trump administration on March 21 terminated a contract...

Another black-robed tyrant has invoked his unearned ‘authority’ to sabotage President Trump’s America-first agenda. As Reuters reported, a U.S. judge in San Francisco on Monday barred the Trump administration from revoking deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants here in America under temporary protected status. His ruling applies nationwide. TPS status for these migrants was scheduled to end on April 7. They were also set to lose their work permits on April 2. Senior District Judge Edward Chen, a Barack Obama appointee, slammed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in his ruling for supposedly stereotyping Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries while slobbering...

Why, precisely, is a judge in Washington allowed to decide what illegal immigrants with alleged gang affiliations, who were being detained in Texas, are entitled to before they’re deported from the country they’ve unlawfully entered? That’s what Alexander Hamilton might like to know. Yes, Hamilton might be the one founding father that it’s OK for Gen Z liberals to like because they can spit verses from “My Shot” on command — likely because the hip social studies teacher in high school let them listen to the “Hamilton” soundtrack for extra credit. But before he was a rapping puppet for Lin-Manuel...

As Beth Brelje recently reported in The Federalist, Five of the fifteen judges sitting on the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia were born outside the United States. All five of those foreign-born judges somehow managed to get selected to rule on controversial Trump cases. All five of those five judges had zero experience as a judge before being appointed to one of the most influential courts in the land. The recently infamous James Boasberg, chief judge of the D.C. District Court, is one of the 15 principal judges on that court. There are an additional 10 older,...

Last month alone, district court judges issued 15 temporary restraining orders halting actions of the Trump administration. That’s more restraining orders than were issued during the first three years of the Biden administration. So far, district courts have blocked an extraordinary range of executive actions, ranging from the attempted repeal of birthright citizenship and a bid to end “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs to an effort to take down government web pages that discuss sex-change operations. * * * The effort to throw a judicial monkey wrench into every one of Trump’s administrative efforts has become a well-thought-out strategy on...

The top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives says Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election is vital because the only way to challenge “gerrymandered” congressional voting maps is “if you have an enlightened Supreme Court” overseeing a legal challenge. Republicans say it’s proof Democrats are planning to redraw maps if liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford wins on April 1. Crawford’s campaign says she’s never commented on congressional redistricting and the GOP is trying to distract from Elon Musk’s support for conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel. During a Democratic National Committee update Monday afternoon, New York House Minority Leader Hakeem...

In recent years, the term “lawfare” has gained prominence in legal and political discourse, referring to the strategic use of legal proceedings to harm, intimidate, or silence an adversary rather than to pursue justice in good faith, most notably brought to public awareness in the multi-year legal pursuit of President Donald Trump. Currently, the unprecedented plethora of cases against the Trump administration has the public and the Republican House of Representatives crying “lawfare,” instigated in a conscious effort to interfere with the president’s electoral mandate and his constitutional prerogatives. As this phenomenon becomes more prevalent, a critical question arises: If...

A second federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Trump’s ban on transgender troops. In January President Trump signed the “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” executive order and the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” executive orders, which direct every element of the U.S. military to “operate free from any preference based on race or sex” and root out gender insanity and made up pronoun usage, respectively. US District Judge Benjamin Hale Settle in Washington State, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on Thursday evening. Judge Settle, a George W. Bush appointee, said the Trump DOJ’s arguments have not been persuasive.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing parts of President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at curbing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts among federal contractors and grant recipients. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois halted the Labor Department from requiring federal contractors or grant recipients from certifying that they don't operate any programs in violation of Trump's anti-DEI executive orders. [snip] The organization argued that the president’s executive orders on DEI are so broad and vague that the organization had no way to ensure compliance, and...

A federal judge ordered White House officials involved in a group chat on military strikes in Yemen to preserve the messages after a bombshell report revealed that they potentially shared classified information. US District Judge James Boasberg ordered members of President Donald Trump's national security team to keep any messages sent or received over the Signal messaging app between 11 and 15 March.

But other democracies provide a roadmap for courts to prevail over attacks from the executive branch. Just two months in, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is aggressively challenging judicial constraints on its power, risking a showdown—and constitutional crisis—in which the executive branch seeks to make court orders optional. This month, the U.S. executive branch blatantly defied a federal judge’s order to temporarily halt the deportation of migrants to El Salvador. The president himself called for the impeachment of the judge who issued the order, along with other judges. In one of the 139 legal cases filed against the Trump administration...

The people’s deference to the judiciary is not unlimited. The courts can weaken their moral authority quickly with over-reaching rulings, particularly when those rulings reek of personal animus toward one man — i.e., “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — rather than rational decision-making. The so-called “resistance” will play well to the “elites” but not to the people who put the president into office to do the very things that are being resisted. Americans intuitively understand that the judiciary’s primary role is to protect the rights of American citizens, not the “rights” of federal bureaucracies and foreign interests. They also understand that the...

A trio of federal judges in California declared on Tuesday that President Donald Trump must welcome roughly 40,000 refugees approved by President Joe Biden’s deputies.#In a second courtroom in Seattle, another federal judge ordered the Trump administration to keep paying the quasi-government agencies that settle the refugees in Americans’ crowded housing, schools, and workplaces, such as in Springfield, Ohio.The judges’ policy preferences are likely to be appealed by Trump’s deputies. The decisions contradict his legal claim that presidents have full authority over who gets to cross the U.S. borders. The judges’ views also contradict Trump’s election mandate to reduce the...