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Straight Arrow News: DOJ whistleblower says Trump appointee ordered defiance of courts

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“They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution – candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,” Reuveni told The New Yorker. “That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.” 

Shortly after three planes filled with alleged Tren de Aragua gang members took off for an El Salvador supermax prison in March, a judge issued a verbal order with a simple instruction to government lawyers:  turn the planes around. The planes, however, continued to El Salvador. 

Now, a whistleblower says a top Department of Justice (DOJ) official authorized disregarding the judge’s order, telling his staff they might have to tell the courts “f- you” in immigration cases.

The official was Principal Associate Attorney General Emil Bove, whom President Donald Trump nominated to be a federal judge. Leaked emails and texts from whistleblower and former DOJ lawyer Erez Reuveni, released during the week of July 7, came days before a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Bove’s nomination to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the committee approves, Bove’s nomination will advance to the full Senate.

At Bove’s direction, “the Department of Justice is thumbing its nose at the courts, and putting Justice Department attorneys in an impossible position where they have to choose between loyalty to the agenda of the president and their duty to the court,” Reuveni told The New York Times.

Bove is perceived by some as a controversial choice for the lifetime position. He served on Trump’s defense team in the state and federal indictments filed after Trump’s first term in the White House.

In 2024, after Trump appointed him acting deputy attorney general, Bove ignited controversy over his firing of federal prosecutors involved in cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and over his role in dismissing corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Early this year, the federal government was using an arcane 18th-century wartime law – the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – to remove the alleged gang members from the United States without court hearings. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia ruled the removals violated the men’s right to due process, setting up the conflict with the DOJ.

The leaker’s emails and texts suggest Bove advised DOJ attorneys that it was okay to deplane the prisoners in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. 

The messages also cite Bove’s instruction for lawyers to consider saying “f- you” to the courts.

 When Reuveni asked DOJ and Department of Homeland Security officials if they would honor the judge’s order to stop the planes to El Salvador, he received vague responses or none at all.

While the email and text correspondence allude to Bove’s instruction, none of the messages appear to have come directly from Bove himself. The official whistleblower complaint was filed on June 24.

Bove denies giving that instruction. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Bove said he “never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order.”

The leak prompted outrage from both sides of the political spectrum. Some say deporting people without trial to a supermax prison in El Salvador violates due process rights and a  DOJ lawyer telling other lawyers to ignore a court order should put him in contempt of court. 

However, Attorney General Pam Bondi – who served as one of Trump’s defense attorneys during his first Senate impeachment trial in 2020 – responded on X, saying there was no court order to defy. 

“As Mr. Bove testified and as the Department has made clear, there was no court order to defy, as we successfully argued to the DC Circuit when seeking a stay, when they stayed Judge Boasberg’s lawless order. And no one was ever asked to defy a court order,” the attorney general wrote Thursday, July 10, when the emails and texts were released. 

Bondi was referring to the DOJ’s immediate emergency appeal to the D.C. Circuit of Appeals requesting a stay of Boasberg’s temporary restraining order. The DOJ did not turn the planes around, arguing that a verbal order by the lower court is not binding and that the planes had already left U.S. airspace.

On March 26, the DOJ lost its appeal, with the D.C. Circuit voting 2-1 to uphold Boasberg’s ruling. The DOJ appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, arguing that the lower courts had interfered with national security and overreached on executive immigration power. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the DOJ, 6-3, and lifted the lower court’s injunction on April 9.

Bondi accused the whistleblower Reuveni of spreading lies. She said on X that this is “another instance of misinformation being spread to serve a narrative that does not align with the facts.” 

“This ‘whistleblower’ signed 3 briefs defending DOJ’s position in this matter and his subsequent revisionist account arose only after he was fired because he violated his ethical duties to the department,” Bondi wrote.

Reuveni worked at the DOJ for 15 years, mostly in the Office of Immigration and Litigation. Bondi fired Reuveni in April for failing to “zealously advocate” for the United States in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was accidentally deported to the El Salvador prison and whose return the Supreme Court eventually ordered.

Bondi and other Trump administration officials have fired many DOJ and FBI employees, saying the administration has broad constitutional power to do so. 

“They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution – candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,” Reuveni told The New Yorker. “That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.” 

DOJ whistleblower says Trump appointee ordered defiance of courts
A Trump judicial nominee told DOJ lawyers to ignore court orders to return planes carrying alleged gang members, a whistleblower claims.

https://san.com/cc/doj-whistleblower-says-trump-appointee-ordered-defiance-of-courts

Guardian: Irish tourist jailed by Ice for months after overstaying US visit by three days: ‘Nobody is safe’

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Exclusive: For roughly 100 days, Thomas says he faced harsh detention conditions, despite agreeing to deportation

Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker and father of three from Ireland, came to West Virginia to visit his girlfriend last fall. It was one of many trips he had taken to the US, and he was authorized to travel under a visa waiver program that allows tourists to stay in the country for 90 days.

He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody.

From there, what should have been a minor incident became a nightmarish ordeal: he was detained by Ice in three different facilities, ultimately spending roughly 100 days behind bars with little understanding of why he was being held – or when he’d get out.

Farm worker who died after California Ice raid was ‘hardworking and innocent’, family saysRead more

“Nobody is safe from the system if they get pulled into it,” said Thomas, in a recent interview from his home in Ireland, a few months after his release. Thomas asked to be identified by a nickname out of fear of facing further consequences with US immigration authorities.

Despite immediately agreeing to deportation when he was first arrested, Thomas remained in Ice detention after Donald Trump took office and dramatically ramped up immigration arrests. Amid increased overcrowding in detention, Thomas was forced to spend part of his time in custody in a federal prison for criminal defendants, even though he was being held on an immigration violation.

Thomas was sent back to Ireland in March and was told he was banned from entering the US for 10 years.

Thomas’s ordeal follows a rise in reports of tourists and visitors with valid visas being detained by Ice, including from Australia, Germany, Canada and the UK. In April, an Irish woman who is a US green card holder was also detained by Ice for 17 days due to a nearly two-decade-old criminal record.

The arrests appear to be part of a broader crackdown by the Trump administration, which has pushed to deport students with alleged ties to pro-Palestinian protests; sent detainees to Guantánamo Bay and an El Salvador prison without presenting evidence of criminality; deported people to South Sudan, a war-torn country where the deportees had no ties; and escalated large-scale, militarized raids across the US.

‘I thought I was going home’

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Thomas detailed his ordeal and the brutal conditions he witnessed in detention that advocates say have long plagued undocumented people and become worse under Trump.

Thomas, an engineer at a tech firm, had never had any problems visiting the US under the visa waiver program. He had initially planned to return home in October, but badly tore his calf, suffered severe swelling and was having trouble walking, he said. A doctor ordered him not to travel for eight to 12 weeks due to the risk of blood clots, which, he said, meant he had to stay slightly past 8 December, when his authorization expired.

He obtained paperwork from his physician and contacted the Irish and US embassies and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seek an extension, but it was short notice and he did not hear back, he said.

“I did everything I could with the online tools available to notify the authorities that this was happening,” he said, explaining that by the time his deadline to leave the US had approached, he was nearly healed and planning to soon return. “I thought they would understand because I had the correct paperwork. It was just a couple of days for medical reasons.”

He might have avoided immigration consequences, if it weren’t for an ill-timed law enforcement encounter.

Thomas and his girlfriend, Malone, were visiting her family in Savannah, Georgia, when Thomas suffered a mental health episode, he and Malone recalled. The two had a conflict in their hotel room and someone overheard it and called the police, they said.

Malone, who requested to use her middle name to protect her boyfriend’s identity, said she was hoping officers would get him treatment and did not want to see him face criminal charges. But police took him to jail, accusing him of “falsely imprisoning” his girlfriend in the hotel room, a charge Malone said she did not support. He was soon released on bond, but instead of walking free, was picked up by US immigration authorities, who transported him 100 miles away to an Ice processing center in Folkston, Georgia. The facility is operated by the private prison company Geo Group on behalf of Ice, with capacity to hold more than 1,000 people.

Thomas was given a two-page removal order, which said he had remained in the US three days past his authorization and contained no further allegations. On 17 December, he signed a form agreeing to be removed.

But despite signing the form he remained at Folkston, unable to get answers about why Ice wasn’t deporting him or how long he would remain in custody. David Cheng, an attorney who represented Thomas, said he requested that Ice release him with an agreement that he’d return to Ireland as planned, but Ice refused.

At one point at Folkston, after a fight broke out, officers placed detainees on lockdown for about five days, cutting them off from contacting their families, he said. Thomas said he and others only got approximately one hour of outdoor time each week.

In mid-February, after about two months in detention, officers placed him and nearly 50 other detainees in a holding cell, preparing to move them, he said: “I thought I was finally going home.” He called his family to tell them the news.

Instead, he and the others were shackled around their wrists, waists and legs and transported four hours to a federal correctional institution in Atlanta, a prison run by the US Bureau of Prisons (BoP), he said.

BoP houses criminal defendants on federal charges, but the Trump administration, as part of its efforts to expand Ice detention, has been increasingly placing immigrants into BoP facilities – a move that advocates say has led to chaos, overcrowding and violations of detainees’ rights.

‘We were treated less than human’

Thomas said the conditions and treatment by BoP were worse than Ice detention: “They were not prepared for us whatsoever.”

He and other detainees were placed in an area with dirty mattresses, cockroaches and mice, where some bunkbeds lacked ladders, forcing people to climb to the top bed, he said.

BoP didn’t seem to have enough clothes, said Thomas, who got a jumpsuit but no shirt. The facility also gave him a pair of used, ripped underwear with brown stains. Some jumpsuits appeared to have bloodstains and holes, he added.

Each detainee was given one toilet paper roll a week. He shared a cell with another detainee, and he said they were only able to flush the toilet three times an hour. He was often freezing and was given only a thin blanket. The food was “disgusting slop”, including some kind of mysterious meat that at times appeared to have chunks of bones and other inedible items mixed in, he said. He was frequently hungry.

“The staff didn’t know why we were there and they were treating us exactly as they would treat BoP prisoners, and they told us that,” Thomas said. “We were treated less than human.”

He and others requested medical visits, but were never seen by physicians, he said: “I heard people crying for doctors, saying they couldn’t breathe, and staff would just say, ‘Well, I’m not a doctor,’ and walk away.” He did eventually receive the psychiatric medication he requested, but staff would throw his pill under his cell door, and he’d sometimes have to search the floor to find it.

Detainees, he said, were given recreation time in an enclosure that was partially open to fresh air, but resembled an indoor cage: “You couldn’t see the outside whatsoever. I didn’t see the sky for weeks.” He had sciatica from an earlier hip injury and said he began experiencing “unbearable” nerve pain as a result of the lack of movement.

Thomas said it seemed Ice’s placements in the BoP facility were arbitrary and poorly planned. Of the nearly 50 people taken from Ice to BoP facility, about 30 of them were transferred back to Folkston a week later, and the following week, two from that group were once again returned to the BoP facility, he said.

In the BoP facility, he said, Ice representatives would show up once a week to talk to detainees. Detainees would crowd around Ice officials and beg for case updates or help. Ice officers spoke Spanish and English, but Middle Eastern and North African detainees who spoke neither were stuck in a state on confusion. “It was pandemonium,” Thomas said.

Thomas said he saw a BoP guard tear up “watching the desperation of the people trying to talk to Ice and find out what was happening”, and that this officer tried to assist people as best as she could. Thomas and Malone tried to help asylum seekers and others he met at the BoP facility by connecting them to advocates.

Thomas was also unable to speak to his children, because there was no way to make international calls. “I don’t know how I made it through,” he said.

In mid-March, Thomas was briefly transferred again to a different Ice facility. The authorities did not explain what had changed, but two armed federal officers then escorted him on a flight back to Ireland.

The DHS and Ice did not respond to inquiries, and a spokesperson for the Geo Group declined to comment.

Donald Murphy, a BoP spokesperson, confirmed that Thomas had been in the bureau’s custody, but did not comment about his case or conditions at the Atlanta facility. The BoP is now housing Ice detainees in eight of its prisons and would “continue to support our law enforcement partners to fulfill the administration’s policy objectives”, Murphy added.

‘This will be a lifelong burden’

It’s unclear why Thomas was jailed for so long for a minor immigration violation.

“It seems completely outlandish that they would detain someone for three months because he overstayed a visa for a medical reason,” said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, who is not involved in his case and was provided a summary by the Guardian. “It is such a waste of time and money at a time when we’re hearing constantly about how the government wants to cut expenses. It seems like a completely incomprehensible, punitive detention.”

Ice, she added, was “creating its own crisis of overcrowding”.

Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel with the National Immigration Law Center, also not involved in the case, said, in general, it was not uncommon for someone to remain in immigration custody even after they’ve accepted a removal order and that she has had European clients shocked to learn they can face serious consequences for briefly overstaying a visa.

Ice, however, had discretion to release Thomas with an agreement that he’d return home instead of keeping him indefinitely detained, she said. The Trump administration, she added, has defaulted to keeping people detained without weighing individual factors of their cases: “Now it’s just, do we have a bed?”

Republican lawmakers in Georgia last year also passed state legislation requiring police to alert immigration authorities when an undocumented person is arrested, which could have played a role in Thomas being flagged to Ice, said Samantha Hamilton, staff attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, a non-profit group that advocates for immigrants’ rights. She met Thomas on a legal visit at the BoP Atlanta facility.

Hamilton said she was particularly concerned about immigrants of color who are racially profiled and pulled over by police, but Thomas’s ordeal was a reminder that so many people are vulnerable. “The mass detentions are terrifying and it makes me afraid for everyone,” she said.

Thomas had previously traveled to the US frequently for work, but now questions if he’ll ever be allowed to return. “This will be a lifelong burden,” he said.

Malone, his girlfriend, said she plans to move to Ireland to live with him. “It’s not an option for him to come here and I don’t want to be in America anymore,” she said.

Since his return, Thomas said he has had a hard time sleeping and processing what happened: “I’ll never forget it, and it’ll be a long time before I’ll be able to even start to unpack everything I went through. It still doesn’t feel real. When I think about it, it’s like a movie I’m watching.” He said he has also struggled with long-term health problems that he attributes to malnutrition and inappropriate medications he was given while detained.

He was shaken by reports of people sent away without due process. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if I ended up at Guantánamo Bay or El Salvador, because it was so disorganized,” he said. “I was just at the mercy of the federal government.”

Irish tourist jailed by Ice for months after overstaying US visit by three days: ‘Nobody is safe’
Exclusive: For roughly 100 days, Thomas says he faced harsh detention conditions, despite agreeing to deportation

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/15/irish-tourist-ice-detention

Reuters: Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit

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The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies – such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University – has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.

Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump’s election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.

The tally has not been previously reported. Using court records and LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but four names on the list. 

Reuters spoke to four former lawyers in the unit and three other people familiar with the departures who said some staffers had grown demoralized and exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against Trump’s administration.

“Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,” said one lawyer who left the unit during Trump’s second term. “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”

Critics have accused the Trump administration of flouting the law in its aggressive use of executive power, including by retaliating against perceived enemies and dismantling agencies created by Congress.

The Trump administration has broadly defended its actions as within the legal bounds of presidential power and has won several early victories at the Supreme Court. A White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump’s actions were legal, and declined to comment on the departures.

“Any sanctimonious career bureaucrat expressing faux outrage over the President’s policies while sitting idly by during the rank weaponization by the previous administration has no grounds to stand on,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. 

The seven lawyers who spoke with Reuters cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable among the key reasons for the wave of departures. 

Three of them said some career lawyers feared they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court, a violation of ethics rules that could lead to professional sanctions.

All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics and avoid retaliation. 

A Justice Department spokesperson said lawyers in the unit are fighting an “unprecedented number of lawsuits” against Trump’s agenda.

“The Department has defeated many of these lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court and will continue to defend the President’s agenda to keep Americans safe,” the spokesperson said. The Justice Department did not comment on the departures of career lawyers or morale in the section.

Some turnover in the Federal Programs Branch is common between presidential administrations, but the seven sources described the number of people quitting as highly unusual. 

Reuters was unable to find comparative figures for previous administrations. However, two former attorneys in the unit and two others familiar with its work said the scale of departures is far greater than during Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s administration.

Heading for the Exit

The exits include at least 10 of the section’s 23 supervisors, experienced litigators who in many cases served across presidential administrations, according to two of the lawyers.

A spokesperson said the Justice Department is hiring to keep pace with staffing levels during the Biden Administration. They did not provide further details.

In its broad overhaul of the Justice Department, the Trump administration has fired or sidelined dozens of lawyers who specialize in prosecuting national security and corruption cases and publicly encouraged departures from the Civil Rights Division. 

But the Federal Programs Branch, which defends challenges to White House and federal agency policies in federal trial courts, remains critical to its agenda. 

The unit is fighting to sustain actions of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency formerly overseen by Elon Musk; Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship and his attempt to freeze $2.5 billion in funding to Harvard University.

“We’ve never had an administration pushing the legal envelope so quickly, so aggressively and across such a broad range of government policies and programs,” said Peter Keisler, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Division under Republican President George W. Bush.

“The demands are intensifying at the same time that the ranks of lawyers there to defend these cases are dramatically thinning.”

The departures have left the Justice Department scrambling to fill vacancies. More than a dozen lawyers have been temporarily reassigned to the section from other parts of the DOJ and it has been exempted from the federal government hiring freeze, according to two former lawyers in the unit.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not comment on the personnel moves.

Justice Department leadership has also brought in about 15 political appointees to help defend civil cases, an unusually high number. 

The new attorneys, many of whom have a record defending conservative causes, have been more comfortable pressing legal boundaries, according to two former lawyers in the unit. 

“They have to be willing to advocate on behalf of their clients and not fear the political fallout,” said Mike Davis, the head of the Article III Project, a pro-Trump legal advocacy group, referring to the role of DOJ lawyers in defending the administration’s policies.

People who have worked in the section expect the Federal Programs Branch to play an important role in the Trump administration’s attempts to capitalize on a Supreme Court ruling limiting the ability of judges to block its policies nationwide. 

Its lawyers are expected to seek to narrow prior court rulings and also defend against an anticipated rise in class action lawsuits challenging government policies. 

Lawyers in the unit are opposing two attempts by advocacy organizations to establish a nationwide class of people to challenge Trump’s order on birthright citizenship. A judge granted one request on Thursday.

Facing Pressure

Four former Justice Department lawyers told Reuters some attorneys in the Federal Programs Branch left over policy differences with Trump, but many had served in the first Trump administration and viewed their role as defending the government regardless of the party in power. 

The four lawyers who left said they feared Trump administration policies to dismantle certain federal agencies and claw back funding appeared to violate the U.S. Constitution or were enacted without following processes that were more defensible in court.

Government lawyers often walked into court with little information from the White House and federal agencies about the actions they were defending, the four lawyers said.

The White House and DOJ did not comment when asked about communications on cases.

Attorney General Pam Bondi in February threatened disciplinary action against government lawyers who did not vigorously advocate for Trump’s agenda. The memo to Justice Department employees warned career lawyers they could not “substitute personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election.”

Four of the lawyers Reuters spoke with said there was a widespread concern that attorneys would be forced to make arguments that could violate attorney ethics rules, or refuse assignments and risk being fired. 

Those fears grew when Justice Department leadership fired a former supervisor in the Office of Immigration Litigation, a separate Civil Division unit, accusing him of failing to forcefully defend the administration’s position in the case of Kilmar Abrego, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador.

The supervisor, Erez Reuveni, filed a whistleblower complaint, made public last month, alleging he faced pressure from administration officials to make unsupported legal arguments and adopt strained interpretations of rulings in three immigration cases.

Justice Department officials have publicly disputed the claims, casting him as disgruntled. A senior official, Emil Bove, told a Senate panel that he never advised defying courts.

Career lawyers were also uncomfortable defending Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms, according to two former Justice Department lawyers and a third person familiar with the matter.

A longtime ally of Bondi who defended all four law firm cases argued they were a lawful exercise of presidential power. Judges ultimately struck down all four orders as violating the Constitution. The Trump administration has indicated it will appeal at least one case.

Not everybody wants to continue hanging out with a bunch of losers!

Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit
Seven lawyers who spoke with Reuters cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable among the key reasons for the wave of departures.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/two-thirds-doj-unit-defending-trump-policies-court-have-quit-2025-07-14

Reuters: ICE may deport migrants to countries other than their own with just six hours notice, memo says

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U.S. immigration officials may deport migrants to countries other than their home nations with as little as six hours’ notice, a top Trump administration official said in a memo, offering a preview of how deportations could ramp up.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will generally wait at least 24 hours to deport someone after informing them of their removal to a so-called “third country,” according to a memo dated Wednesday, July 9, from the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons.

ICE could remove them, however, to a so-called “third country” with as little as six hours’ notice “in exigent circumstances,” said the memo, as long as the person has been provided the chance to speak with an attorney.

The memo states that migrants could be sent to nations that have pledged not to persecute or torture them “without the need for further procedures.”

The new ICE policy suggests President Donald Trump’s administration could move quickly to send migrants to countries around the world.

The Supreme Court in June lifted a lower court’s order limiting such deportations without a screening for fear of persecution in the destination country.

Following the high court’s ruling and a subsequent order from the justices, the Trump administration sent eight migrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam to South Sudan.

The administration last week pressed officials from five African nations – Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon – to accept deportees from elsewhere, Reuters reported.

The Washington Post first reported the new ICE memo.

The administration argues the third country deportations help swiftly remove migrants who should not be in the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

Advocates have criticized the deportations as dangerous and cruel, since people could be sent to countries where they could face violence, have no ties and do not speak the language.

Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for a group of migrants pursuing a class action lawsuit against such rapid third-county deportations at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the policy “falls far short of providing the statutory and due process protections that the law requires.”

Third-country deportations have been done in the past, but the tool could be more frequently used as Trump tries to ramp up deportations to record levels.

During Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency, his administration deported small numbers of people from El Salvador and Honduras to Guatemala.

Former President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration struck a deal with Mexico to take thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, since it was difficult to deport migrants to those nations.

The new ICE memo was filed as evidence in a lawsuit over the wrongful deportation of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

ICE may deport migrants to countries other than their own with just six hours notice, memo says

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ice-may-deport-migrants-countries-other-than-their-own-with-just-six-hours-2025-07-13

New York Times: ‘Egregious.’ ‘Brazen.’ ‘Lawless. ’How 48 JudgesDescribe Trump’s Actions, In Their Own Words

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Many Americans in positions of power, including corporate executives and members of Congress, seem too afraid of President Trump to stand up to his anti-democratic behavior. Federal judges have shown themselves to be exceptions. “Judges from across the ideological spectrum are ruling against administration policies at remarkable rates,” said Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University.

These rulings have halted Mr. Trump’s vengeful attempts to destroy law firms, forestalled some of his budget cuts and kept him from deporting additional immigrants. Yes, the Supreme Court has often been more deferential to the president. Still, it has let stand many lower-court rulings and has itself constrained Mr. Trump in some cases.

The bipartisan alarm from federal judges offers a roadmap for others to respond to Mr. Trump’s often illegal behavior. His actions deserve to be called out in plain language for what they really are. And people in positions of influence should do what they can to stand up for American values, as many judges have done.

Here, we’ve compiled quotations from judges’ recent rulings and bench comments.

…

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

Appointed by Ronald Reagan

On the refusal to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador:

“This is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone.”

Leonie M. Brinkema, Eastern District of Virginia

Appointed by Bill Clinton

On an ICE official’s inconsistent affidavit:

“This is a terrible, terrible affidavit. If this were before me in a criminal case and you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I’d throw you out of my chambers.”

James E. Boasberg, District of Columbia District

Appointed by Barack Obama

On a judge’s order blocking deportations:

“In an egregious case of cherry-picking, defendants selectively quote only a fragment of the court’s response here to mischaracterize its position.”

Click on the links below to read what the other 45 judges had to say regarding King Donald’s legal prowess:

Opinion | ‘Egregious.’ ‘Brazen.’ ‘Lawless.’ How 48 Judges Describe Trump’s Actions, in Their Own Words
Dozens of judges, appointed by presidents of both parties, have stood up to the administration’s lawlessness.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/12/opinion/editorials/federal-judges-quotes-trump-administration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V08.A1qs.Bu0IZMlwJ46a&smid=url-share

Raw Story: DOJ lawyer ‘put his foot in his mouth’ in front of ‘righteously indignant’ judge

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The Justice Department’s lawyer “put his foot in his mouth the minute he started and never seemed to get it out” in a recent hearing, according to a former prosecutor.

Ex-federal prosecutor Joyce Vance highlighted a high-profile case in which, as the Washington Post put it, “a federal judge in Maryland sharply rebuked a Justice Department attorney” after “an immigration official could not answer basic questions about the Trump administration’s plans to deport Kilmar Abrego García if he is released pending trial on federal human-smuggling charges against him in Tennessee.”

In the Maryland hearing this week, “Judge Paula Xinis heard testimony from a witness she had directed the government to present, and it turned out that the testimony failed to answer some of the very basic questions she has about the case,” according to Vance. She said they were questions such as, “What do you plan to do with Mr. Abrego Garcia if he’s released, and in what country, other than El Salvador, where the government is currently prohibited from sending him, might you dump him?”

Vance went on to ridicule the DOJ’s position in the case.

“The government is taking a ridiculous posture, saying that unless and until he’s released from criminal custody in the Tennessee case, they aren’t making any plans at all—they just have some vague ideas about the possibilities,” she wrote. “Given that this is the same government we now know from the Erez Reuveni whistleblower case doesn’t feel compelled to comply with courts that rule against Donald Trump’s desired course of action, it’s easy to understand why the Judge was skeptical of the government, telling their lawyers she could no longer presume they were acting in good faith at one point. The presumption of regularity entitles the government to an assumption by the court that its actions are valid and in accordance with the law, placing a burden on any party challenging it to prove otherwise.”

Vance highlighted Xinis’ comment to the DOJ lawyer: “You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it in my view.”

“The government acted like everything was business as usual and this was just an ordinary case. But this Judge understands that it is not. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers made such a modest request, functional due process, just a couple of days’ notice before their client is dropped in a hellhole like South Sudan,” she wrote. “The government’s lawyer put his foot in his mouth the minute he started and never seemed to get it out. For starters, the Judge had asked yesterday for basic paperwork, the detainer that ICE was using to hold Abrego Garcia. But it took them until midway through the hearing to provide it to her. That’s an inexcusable failure on the government’s part that fairly shouts disrespect to the court.”

The analyst continued:

“The government told Judge Xinis they can either deport Abrego Garcia to a third country of their choice or reopen withholding proceedings… But the government wouldn’t commit to either option or even hint at its thinking.”

She added, “The Judge was righteously indignant that the government wouldn’t say what it wants to do, maintaining the fiction that some randomly assigned desk officer will decide what happens on the fly if Abrego Garcia is returned to their custody, just like they would in any normal case. It’s ridiculous. The government is saying ‘f— you’ to the courts over and over again, and the courts seem to be getting the message.”

DOJ lawyer ‘put his foot in his mouth’ in front of ‘righteously indignant’ judge

https://www.rawstory.com/doj-lawyer-foot-in-mouth

CNN: Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring

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President Donald Trump and his administration continue to bet big on the issue that, more than any other, appeared to help him win him a second term in 2024: immigration.

The administration and its allies have gleefully played up standoffs between federal immigration agents and protesters, such as the one Thursday during a raid at a legal marijuana farm in Ventura County, California.

And as congressional Republicans were passing a very unpopular Trump agenda bill last month, Vice President JD Vance argued that its historic expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and new immigration enforcement provisions were so important that “everything else” was “immaterial.”

But this appears to be an increasingly bad bet for Trump and Co.

It’s looking more and more like Trump has botched an issue that, by all rights, should have been a great one for him. And ICE’s actions appear to be a big part of that.

The most recent polling on this comes from Gallup, where the findings are worse than those of any poll in Trump’s second term.

The nearly monthlong survey conducted in June found Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of immigration by a wide margin: 62% to 35%. And more than twice as many Americans strongly disapproved (45%) as strongly approved (21%).

It also found nearly 7 in 10 independents disapproved.

These are Trump’s worst numbers on immigration yet. But the trend has clearly been downward – especially in high-quality polling like Gallup’s.

An NPR-PBS News-Marist College poll conducted late last month, for instance, showed 59% of independents disapproved of Trump on immigration. And a Quinnipiac University poll showed 66% of independents disapproved.

Trump has managed to become this unpopular on immigration despite historic lows in border crossings. And the data suggest that’s largely tied to deportations and ICE.

To wit:

  • 59% overall and 66% of independents disapproved of Trump’s handling of deportations, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
  • 56% overall and 64% of independents disapproved of the way ICE was doing its job, according to Quinnipiac.
  • 54% overall and 59% of independents said ICE has “gone too far” in enforcing immigration law, per the Marist poll. (Even 1 in 5 Republicans agreed.)
  • Americans disapproved 54-45% of ICE conducting more raids to find undocumented immigrants at workplaces, according to a Pew Research Center poll last month.

Americans also appear to disagree with some of the more heavy-handed aspects of the deportation program:

  • They disapproved 55-43% of significantly increasing the number of facilities to hold immigrants being processed for deportation, per Pew – even as the Trump administration celebrates Florida’s controversial new “Alligator Alcatraz.”
  • They said by a nearly 2-to-1 margin that it’s “unacceptable” to deport an immigrant to a country other than their own, per Pew – another key part of the administration’s efforts.
  • They also disapproved, 61-37%, of deporting undocumented immigrants to a prison in El Salvador – the place where the administration sent hundreds without due process, in some cases in error (such as with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has since been returned).

There’s a real question in all of this whether people care that much. They might disapprove of some of the more controversial aspects of Trump’s deportations, but maybe it’s not that important to them – and they might even like the ultimate results.

That’s the bet Trump seems to be making: that he can push forward on something his base really wants and possibly even tempt his political opponents to overreach by appearing to defend people who are in the country illegally.

But at some point, the White House has got to look at these numbers and start worrying that its tactics are backfiring.

Gallup shows the percentage of Americans who favor deporting all undocumented immigrants dropping from 47% last year during the 2024 campaign down to 38% now that it’s a reality Trump is pursuing.

And all told, Trump’s second term has actually led to the most sympathy for migrants on record in the 21st century, per Gallup. Fully 79% of Americans now say immigration is a “good thing,” compared with 64% last year.

The writing has been on the wall that Americans’ support for mass deportation was subject to all kinds of caveats and provisos. But the administration appears to have ignored all that and run headlong into problems of its own creation.

Analysis: Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring | CNN Politics
President Donald Trump and his administration continue to bet big on the issue that, more than any other, appeared to help him win him a second term in 2024: immigration.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/13/politics/deportations-backfiring-trump-analysis

Axios: Trump ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding

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The MAGA movement is reveling in the creativity, severity and accelerating force of President Trump’s historic immigration crackdown.

Once-fringe tactics — an alligator-moated detention camp, deportations to war zones, denaturalization of immigrant citizens — are now being proudly embraced at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

  • It’s an extraordinary shift from Trump’s first term, when nationwide backlash and the appearance of cruelty forced the administration to abandon its family separation policy for unauthorized immigrants.
  • Six months into his second term — and with tens of billions of dollars in new funding soon flowing to ICE — Trump is only just beginning to scale up his mass deportation machine.

Trump on Tuesday toured a temporary ICE facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” where thousands of migrants will be detained in a remote, marshland environment teeming with predators.

  • MAGA influencers invited on the trip gleefully posted photos of the prison’s cages and souvenir-style “merchandise,” thrilling their followers and horrifying critics.
  • Pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer drew outrage after tweeting that “alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now” — widely interpreted as a reference to the Hispanic population of the United States.

Citing the millions of unauthorized immigrants who crossed the border under President Biden, Trump and his MAGA allies have framed the second-term crackdown as a long-overdue purge.

  • The result is an increasingly draconian set of enforcement measures designed to deter, expel and make examples out of unauthorized immigrants.
  • Some newer members of the MAGA coalition, such as podcaster Joe Rogan, have expressed deep discomfort with the targeting of non-criminal undocumented immigrants.

…

Denaturalization of U.S. citizens — once a legal backwater — is gaining traction as Trump and his MAGA allies push the envelope on nativist rhetoric.

  • The Justice Department has begun prioritizing stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship when they’re charged with crimes and “illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process.”
  • But some MAGA influencers are pushing to weaponize denaturalization more broadly — not just as a legal remedy for fraud, but as a tool to punish ideological opponents.

…

Trump ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding
Once-fringe tactics — an alligator-moated detention camp, denaturalization of citizens — are now being embraced.

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/05/trump-migrants-alligator-alcatraz-denaturalize

CBS News: Kilmar Abrego Garcia asks to remain in federal custody, and Justice Dept. agrees

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported back to his home country and then returned to the U.S. for federal prosecution, may remain in federal custody, after his lawyers and prosecutors sparred over whether he would be deported immediately upon his release while awaiting a criminal trial.

His lawyers asked that a magistrate judge’s order granting him pretrial release not be issued until July 16, when he is scheduled to appear in court again for another hearing. In a filing Friday, prosecutors agreed to the delay. The court must still approve the request.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in a filing with the court that the Justice Department has been giving conflicting statements as to whether the Trump administration will move to deport him before he stands trial.

Give the poor guy his day in court!

Kilmar Abrego Garcia asks to remain in federal custody, and Justice Department agrees
The U.S. agreed to a request by Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorneys that his release order be delayed through July 16.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kilmar-abrego-garcia-remain-in-federal-custody-justice-department-agrees

Fox News: Trump DHS sues entire bench of federal judges in Maryland district court over automatic injunctions

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DHS lawsuit targets Maryland federal court’s automatic pause policy that delays deportations

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is suing all 15 judges on the Maryland federal bench, arguing the court’s policy of automatically pausing certain immigration cases that come before it is unlawful.

Attorneys for the Trump administration argued to the very court they are suing that the policy, imposed through an order the court issued in May, is an “egregious example of judicial overreach.”

Stupid fools — how is the court supposed to consider a case if the deportation isn’t stopped at least long enough the court to hear the case and reach a decision.

Where does Trump find these shit-for-brains attorneys?

Trump DHS sues entire bench of federal judges in Maryland district court over automatic injunctions
The Trump administration files lawsuit against all 15 Maryland federal judges, challenging court policy that temporarily blocks deportations of immigrants filing habeas corpus petitions.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-dhs-sues-entire-bench-federal-judges-maryland-district-court-over-automatic-injunctions