Free Republic

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...

Nov 20 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday halted for now President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington D.C., dealing Trump a temporary legal setback to his efforts to send the military to American cities over the objections of local leaders.U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to enforce the law in the nation’s capital without approval from its mayor.Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here.Cobb paused...

A federal judge on Monday dismissed the Trump administration’s challenge to a New York law that blocks immigration arrests for people traveling to and from state courthouses. U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino rejected the administration’s claims that New York’s restrictions create unconstitutional obstacles to immigration enforcement and are preempted by federal law. “To hold to the contrary would improperly elevate the concerns of the federal sovereign over that of a State and deprive New York of its essential ability to protect its sovereign interests in the face of undue federal interference,” D’Agostino wrote in her 41-page opinion. New York passed...

A federal judge ordered prosecutors Monday to turn over secret grand jury records in the case against former FBI Director James Comey to his legal team Monday, calling out “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that … potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”And one legal expert said the bombshell decision could spell disaster for the prosecution against Comey and potentially be a huge embarrassment for the whole Department of Justice.In a 24-page ruling, US Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick accused the feds of flouting attorney-client privilege to secure an indictment of President Trump’s longtime nemesis, ripped...

Public universities in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee have been on notice for four years that they cannot force faculty to use students' preferred pronouns and may pay a steep penalty if they try. Last week, those states' K-12 schools got the same message as applied to student speech. The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a lower court to issue an "appropriately tailored preliminary injunction" that bans Ohio's Olentangy Local School District "from punishing students for the commonplace use of biological pronouns," as distinct from "the abuse of transgender students" in violation of harassment policies. Half of...

A New York judge dismissed a legal challenge Friday from Texas seeking to enforce a more than $100,000 civil judgment against a doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a Dallas-area woman in an early test of the state's “shield law” designed to protect providers. Republican Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton wanted a New York court to enforce a civil decision from Texas against Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who practices north of New York City in Ulster County, for allegedly prescribing abortion medication via telemedicine. But acting Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck refused to file the judgment, saying he was...

"Judge says Greenpeace must pay $345 million in pipeline lawsuit, cutting jury amount nearly in half"

A federal judge on Tuesday evening said Los Angeles-based US Attorney Bill Essayli has been in the role unlawfully and disqualified him. President Trump chose California Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli to serve as the acting US attorney for the Central District of California earlier this year. Bill Essayli is a staunch Trump supporter who has been aggressively investigating and prosecuting illegal aliens and criminals. US District Judge Michael Seabright, a George W. Bush appointee, said Essayli has been unlawfully serving since July. Judge Seabright did not dismiss Essayli’s indictments because they were signed by other attorneys for the government. The...

A federal judge has indefinitely blocked President Trump’s efforts to lay off thousands of federal employees amid the government shutdown. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, an appointee of former President Clinton, sided with government employee unions that asked her to bar the administration from carrying out the reductions in force (RIFs) as the lawsuit moves forward. More than 4,000 workers were set to be impacted by the job actions.The preliminary injunction extends Illston’s previous order temporarily stopping the administration’s attempted layoffs, which she has said she believes will ultimately be deemed illegal and an overstep of executive authority.The judge said...

A federal judge in Eugene Monday night granted a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from halting grant funding for sex education programs that include references to gender identities. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken found the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lacked any grounds to restrict such grant funding and said its new restrictions amounted to sex discrimination. The grants were authorized by Congress to support sex education programs intended to help reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections and adolescent sexual risk behavior based on “medical and social science,” Aiken wrote. Congress also stated the programs must...

While President Trump is working overtime to keep America safe and undo the disaster Joe Biden left behind when he opened our borders. Biden flung open the floodgates and let millions of illegals pour into this country, many with serious criminal records. We’ve all seen the headlines: violent crimes, repeat offenders, and senseless tragedies that could have been prevented. One of the biggest obstacles President Trump is facing is the Democrats. Activist immigration judges, to be exact. These activist judges are working just as hard to keep illegals in the country as Trump’s administration has been working to get them...

Ethics experts and Democrats say they are eager to know whether private donors behind the planned $300 million ballroom are poised to receive any benefits in return.President Donald Trump’s swift demolition of the White House’s East Wing this week stunned conservationists and many Americans. But ethics experts and Democrats say they are turning to a question related to the next phase of the project: whether the donors behind the planned $300 million ballroom that will replace the demolished annex will receive any benefits in return.Tech companies and defense contractors such as Google, Lockheed Martin and Microsoft, as well as wealthy...

A federal judge in Chicago just made a decision that’s raising eyebrows — and not just among immigration officers.In a move that’s already stirring debate nationwide, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ruled that ICE agents — yes, federal officers — can be arrested if they take migrants into custody at Cook County courthouses without a proper warrant. Let that sink in for a second. (snip) So, who’s actually in charge here — federal law enforcement… or local judges?And if ICE agents can be arrested for doing their jobs, what kind of message does that send to those who aren’t even...

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, Iowa, and New York do not have to comply with recent executive orders requiring them to affirm biological sex and discontinue the promotion of radical gender ideology and promiscuity in order to receive federal funding Key Takeaways: * Despite multiple Trump executive orders specifying otherwise, a district judge has ruled that certain Planned Parenthood affiliates in three states do not have to rid their sex ed curricula of radical gender ideology. * The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program has been shown in the past to have failed to...

⛔️CORRUPTION WATCH:Judge Ted Chuang, an Obama-appointed anti-Trump judge, has been assigned the case against John Bolton. He already ruled against @elonmusk and DOGE, and against President Trump when he righteously implemented the travel ban. I filed Articles of Impeachment on this judicial hack MONTHS ago. This is not good.pic.twitter.com/Kt3VgnsAar— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) October 20, 2025

Dua Lipa scored a legal victory in a copyright lawsuit over her 2020 smash “Levitating” after a judge dismissed the case. Lipa was initially hit with a pair of “Levitating” copyright lawsuits in March 2022, one from Florida reggae group named Artikal Sound System that was dismissed in June 2023, and another from L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer. Judge Katherine Polk Failla dismissed the latter earlier today in New York court, explaining that the commonalities between songs were not protectable under copyright law. In their initial suit, Brown and Linzer accused Lipa of copying both their 1979 song “Wiggle...

National Guard troops are typically under the control of state governors, but federal law empowers the president to call them into federal service if there is a danger of foreign invasion or “rebellion against the authority of the government.”Trump has pointed to immigration-related protests in Chicago and other cities to justify his attempts to use the guard. But the 7th Circuit judges rejected that rationale.A protest does not transform into a “rebellion” just because protesters are well-organized, advocate to overhaul the structure of government or use civil disobedience, Judges Ilana Rovner, David Hamilton and Amy St. Eve wrote. Nor do...

CHICAGO (AP) — Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area will be required to wear body cameras, a judge said Thursday after seeing tear gas and other aggressive steps used against protesters. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said she was a “little startled” after seeing TV images of clashes between agents and the public during President Donald Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown. “I live in Chicago if folks haven’t noticed,” she said. “And I’m not blind, right?” Community efforts to oppose U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have ramped up in the nation’s third-largest city, where neighborhood groups have assembled to monitor...

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argues that being black is like having a handicap or disability. They don't have equal access to the voting system. They're disabled."

Key Points A federal judge blocked the Trump administration, for now, from firing federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown. The order came five days after the administration issued reduction-in-force notifications to more than 4,000 federal workers.