The suit challenges a May 28 order issued by the district’s chief judge concerning the handling of habeas corpus petitions.
In a move more characteristic of a 17th-century English king than a 21st-century American president, the Trump administration last week filed a lawsuit against every sitting federal judge in the state of Maryland.
The charge? That one judge’s attempt to preserve due process for individuals challenging their deportations is disrupting the president’s immigration policies. This unprecedented lawsuit is a dangerous attack on an independent judiciary and escalates the ongoing struggle between the executive and judicial branches. And it brings America one step closer to a constitutional crisis.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the U.S. government and the Department of Homeland Security in U.S. District Court in Maryland against all 15 active and senior-status judges in that district, as well as the district’s clerk of court. The suit challenges a May 28 order issued by the district’s chief judge concerning the handling of habeas corpus petitions — legal actions that contest the government’s detention of individuals as unlawful.
The May 28 order expressly addresses the “recent influx” of habeas petitions concerning people subject to deportation, an influx triggered by the administration’s aggressive immigration policies. DHS is trying to move quickly to deport people whom it has identified as illegal aliens; in response, many detainees are filing lawsuits to block those deportations. DHS is proceeding with deportation before courts can hear the cases, and judges are scrambling to manage what the May 28 order describes as “hurried and frustrated hearings” in which “clear and concrete information about the location and status of the [detainees] is elusive.” To ensure that detainees are afforded due process — the U.S. Constitution guarantees due process to all “persons” in the United States, not just “citizens” — the May 28 order prohibits the government from deporting a prisoner for two days after a habeas petition is filed, giving the presiding judge time to review the case.
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Several appellate courts have similar standing orders.
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But here, the administration has taken the extraordinary step, apparently for the first time in our nation’s history, of pre-emptively suing all the judges responsible for implementing a ruling it claims is unlawful.
This lawsuit is not about immigration policy. It is a frontal assault on judicial authority, raising separation of powers principles that predate the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
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This attempted power grab should alarm anyone who values our constitutional framework.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-doj-suing-marylands-federal-judges-rcna215771
