Judge to hear Trump's immigration suit against all 15 Maryland federal judges
Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A judge Wednesday will consider a lawsuit in which the President Donald Trump administration filed suit against all 15 Maryland federal judges over a deportation order.
Chief Judge George Russell on May 21 made a standing order that set rules for cases where immigrants face immediate risk of deportation. The order applies a temporary stay of deportation of a few days while the case is considered.
The suit is an escalation of the administration's battle against the judiciary, which has slowed his use of executive power.
As the top judge in the district of Maryland, it's part of Russell's job to set procedures for how courts administer cases. The order was in response to the Trump administration's flurry of actions taken to deport people without due process. The most well-known case is that of Salvadoran man Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was wrongly deported from Maryland to a detention center in El Salvador. He was eventually returned.
The hearing Wednesday will be in the Baltimore federal courthouse but has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who normally presides in Virginia.
Justice Department lawyers under Attorney General Pam Bondi said in court filings that the order "harms the federal government's sovereign interests on a repeated and ongoing basis" because it applies even when the immigrant may have no valid legal argument or the court has no jurisdiction over the case.
The Department of Justice argued that the court has no authority to issue the order, which goes far beyond Russell's authority as a chief judge.
The judges have hired a legal team that includes Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general under Republican President George W. Bush.
The lawyers' attorneys argued in their filings that the lawsuit is "fundamentally incompatible with the separation of powers," which assigns different functions to the president and courts. The standing order is a purely administrative procedure and does not reflect any consideration of the legal merits of any claim, they wrote.
Robert Koulish, research professor and director of undergraduate law programs at the University of Maryland, told the Baltimore Banner that he had predicted that Maryland would be a target of the Trump administration because the state is heavily Democratic with political leaders who have been critical of the White House's immigration stance.
"We have everything that the administration is looking to make an example of -- it's a state that will never be purple, or never turn red," Koulish said.
Maryland has seen a surge in immigration arrests compared with the rest of the country, the Banner reported. Under Trump, average weekly ICE arrests in the state rose 165% through June of this year, compared with 2024, outpacing the 122% rise nationwide, according to the Banner's recent analysis of government data.
Other states have seen even more. In Pennsylvania and West Virginia, weekly arrests have more than tripled under the administration. They have more than quadrupled in Virginia. Baltimore has also taken the president's criticism for other reasons, including his mentioning the city this week as part of a list of Democratic-led cities he calls crime-ridden.
Maryland has become "ground zero" for some of the administration's "most aggressive and legally questionable immigration tactics," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the Baltimore-based Global Refuge, which helps immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
"The message seems clear: There will be extreme pushback on jurisdictions like Maryland who welcome immigrants, defend their rights under the law, and hold the federal government accountable to its constitutional obligations," she told the Banner.
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