Tag: judges

Federal judge rules ICE agents in Colorado may only arrest illegal immigrants likely to flee

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Colorado may only arrest illegal immigrants without a warrant if the targets are likely to flee.

U.S. District Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson’s order comes after a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and other lawyers on behalf of four people, including asylum-seekers, who were arrested by ICE without warrants earlier this year as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.

The lawsuit accuses immigration agents of indiscriminately arresting Latinos to meet the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement goals without evaluating the requirements to legally detain them.

The judge said each of the plaintiffs had long-standing ties to their communities and no reasonable agent could have believed they were likely to flee before obtaining a warrant.

Under federal law, immigration agents must have probable cause to believe someone is in the country illegally and likely to flee before a warrant can be obtained, in order to arrest them without one, Jackson said.

Immigration agents are also required to document the reasons for arresting someone.

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Judge throws out Comey and James cases as Trump’s beauty queen prosecutor is humiliated

Donald Trump‘s cases against his political foes James Comey and Letitia James have been thrown out.

Judge Cameron Currie accused the President’s hand-picked attorney, Lindsey Halligan, of ‘prosecutorial misconduct’ after she secured indictments against the former FBI director and the New York Attorney General.

She added that Halligan is ‘a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience’ who was never eligible to serve.

A 120-day deadline on interim appointments expired during the previous prosecutor’s tenure, meaning Pam Bondi did not have the authority to appoint Halligan – this was up to the district’s federal judges.

‘I conclude that all actions flowing from Ms Halligan’s defective appointment, including securing and signing Mr Comey’s indictment, constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside,’ wrote Currie, a Bill Clinton-appointed judge.

Both Comey and James asked that their cases be dismissed and that the prosecutor be disqualified because of the manner of her appointment. 

The defendants in the two separate cases asked for the indictments to be dismissed with prejudice, which means the Justice Department would not be able to bring the same charges against them. But the judge dismissed with prejudice. 

Comey was charged with making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding relating to his 2020 Senate testimony, where he denied authorizing FBI officials to leak information to the press. 

James was indicted on charges including bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution concerning information on mortgage applications that prosecutors alleged was falsified.

Halligan, a former beauty queen, was named to the job of interim US Attorney for Virginia in September.

Before her appointment, Erik Siebert, a different interim attorney, was forced out amid pressure from Trump to file charges against his political enemies. 

Comey’s lawyers argued that after Siebert was forced out, the judges should have had exclusive say over who would fill the vacancy.

But it was ultimately Trump who moved forward and nominated Halligan as he publicly pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against Comey and James.

‘JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!’ the President wrote on Truth Social at the time.

Comey was indicted days later on charges of making a false statement and obstructing Congress, and James was charged soon after that in a mortgage fraud investigation.

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North Dakota court reverses judge’s ruling that legalized abortion

The North Dakota Supreme Court has reinstated the state’s abortion ban, overturning a previous ruling from a judge finding it unconstitutional.

The new decision makes it a felony crime to perform an abortion, with abortion providers facing as many as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Patients are protected from prosecution, however.

North Dakota initially moved to ban abortion after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. This prompted the state’s one abortion provider, Red River Women’s Clinic, to move from Fargo to Moorhead, Minnesota.

The state passed a near-total ban in 2023, before it was struck down by State District Judge Bruce Romanick, ruling that it was unconstitutionally vague.

According to the North Dakota Constitution, at least four of the five justices to agree for a law to be deemed unconstitutional. Three justices believed that the law was vague on whether it was constitutional. The other two said that the law is not unconstitutional.

Justice Jerod Tufte wrote in his opinion that the natural rights granted by the state constitution do not extend to abortion, and that the law “provides adequate and fair warning to those attempting to comply.”

Those who opposed the higher court’s decision ironically called it “a devastating loss for pregnant North Dakotans.”

“As a majority of the Court found, this cruel and confusing ban is incomprehensible to physicians. The ban forces doctors to choose between providing care and going to prison,” Center for Reproductive Rights senior staff attorney Meetra Mehdizadeh said. “Abortion is healthcare, and North Dakotans deserve to be able to access this care without delay caused by confusion about what the law allows.”

Republicans praised the decision, however.

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Victory! Court Ends Dragnet Electricity Surveillance Program in Sacramento

A California judge ordered the end of a dragnet law enforcement program that surveilled the electrical smart meter data of thousands of Sacramento residents.

The Sacramento County Superior Court ruled that the surveillance program run by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and police violated a state privacy statute, which bars the disclosure of residents’ electrical usage data with narrow exceptions. For more than a decade, SMUD coordinated with the Sacramento Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to sift through the granular smart meter data of residents without suspicion to find evidence of cannabis growing.

EFF and its co-counsel represent three petitioners in the case: the Asian American Liberation Network, Khurshid Khoja, and Alfonso Nguyen. They argued that the program created a host of privacy harms—including criminalizing innocent people, creating menacing encounters with law enforcement, and disproportionately harming the Asian community.

The court ruled that the challenged surveillance program was not part of any traditional law enforcement investigation. Investigations happen when police try to solve particular crimes and identify particular suspects. The dragnet that turned all 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects was not an investigation.

“[T]he process of making regular requests for all customer information in numerous city zip codes, in the hopes of identifying evidence that could possibly be evidence of illegal activity, without any report or other evidence to suggest that such a crime may have occurred, is not an ongoing investigation,” the court ruled, finding that SMUD violated its “obligations of confidentiality” under a data privacy statute.

Granular electrical usage data can reveal intimate details inside the home—including when you go to sleep, when you take a shower, when you are away, and other personal habits and demographics.

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Anti-Christian Judge Prevents Mother from Taking Daughter to Church or Even Reading the Bible

Child custody cases are often fraught with trying and unusual behaviors and demands, but the recent custody order from a judge in Maine has taken bigotry against Christians to a new level.

Emily Bickford had a daughter, Ava who turns 13 in January, with Matt Bradeen. The two were not married, and Emily has retained primary custody while the father has visitation rights.

Emily is Christian and has worked to provide a foundation of faith for her daughter, something her non-custodial father opposes.  He has been described as ‘hating’ Christianity.

Bradeen took the issue to court, found a former ACLU president who had become a judge, and the war on religion commenced.

The judge issued a custody order that can only be viewed as hostile to Christianity. The order forbids Ava from associating with any of her church friends, attending church or Christian events, and even prevents Ava from studying the Bible, “religious philosophy,” or discussing her faith with her own mother.  Ava is also not allowed to participate in Christian holiday events such as Christmas.

According to Liberty Council, the mother and daughter had been attending Calvary Chapel, an evangelical Christian church in Portland, ME, for 3½ years. Ava shared her excitement with her father over her upcoming baptism and that is when the trouble began.

Instead of sharing his daughter’s excitement, even if his views differ, he engaged the leftist judge and then brought in a Marxist former sociology professor from California as a “witness.” The witness testified that Calvary Chapel (and any church that believes the Bible) is a “cult” that causes psychological harm to children.

“The judge found that Emily is a fit parent EXCEPT for the fact that she is a Christian,” Liberty Council’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver notes.

“The judge mocked Ava and Emily’s faith by purposefully refusing to capitalize the word ‘God’ — something I have never seen.”

The judge even chastised Emily for allowing the church pastor to pray for Ava. And the judge ruled that Emily could not take Ava to ANY church unless Matt approves. And Matt has steadfastly refused to approve ANY church,” he continued.

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Outrage Erupts After Judge Releases Two Murder Suspects Without Requiring Any Bail Payment

A California judge has released two accused murderers in as many weeks without requiring a dollar of bail from either of them.

People far from the dysfunctional San Francisco Bay Area should be outraged by that news.

According to Fox News, Judge Hector Ramon freed a man named Vicente Aguilera-Chavez on Oct. 31, without requiring him to post bail.

Then, during a hearing a week ago, he released another man named Agustin Sandoval, also on his own recognizance.

Both men are charged in connection with a 2017 nightclub parking lot shooting that killed 21-year-old Edu Veliz-Salgado and wounded another man in Santa Clara County, KTVU-TV reported.

The case went cold for years until detectives in the city of Sunnyvale identified the two suspects last year.

Yet despite the severity of the charges, Judge Ramon released both defendants back into the community without requiring bail.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen told Fox News that two accused killers are now freely walking his community.

“The odds of re-offense or fleeing from justice just doubled. People’s lives ride on those odds,” he said. “This is outside the bounds of what’s acceptable, and it’s dangerous to the public.”

He also noted that Aguilera had been to prison twice and was a reputed gang member.

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Panel of Federal Judges Block New Texas Congressional Map, Orders State to Use 2021 Map

A panel of federal judges on Tuesday blocked the new Texas Congressional map and ordered the state to use the 2021 map.

In a 2-1 ruling, the three-judge panel ordered Texas to use its 2021 congressional map.

The judges claimed the newly redrawn map is unconstitutional because it appears to be a ‘race-based gerrymander.’

The ruling is expected to be immediately appealed.

US District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote the majority opinion.

Politico reported:

A panel of federal judges has blocked Texas’ newly-redrawn congressional map — which made five districts in the state more favorable to Republicans — saying the plan appeared to be an illegal race-based gerrymander.

In a 2-1 ruling, the court ordered Texas to rely instead on the boundaries legislators drew in 2021. The new map, the majority concluded, appears likely to be unconstitutional and was drawn at the urging of the Trump administration.

“The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor — the 2025 Map — achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Galveston-based Trump appointee, wrote for the panel majority.

In late August, the Texas House voted on the new Congressional map after the Democrats stonewalled them for more than two weeks.

The map, passed 19–2 along party lines, was designed to create up to five new Republican‑drawn U.S. House seats in anticipation of the 2026 midterm elections.

“This mid-decade redistricting isn’t about fair representation—it’s about politicians picking their voters instead of voters choosing their leaders,” the Senate Democrat Caucus said in a previous statement. “And it doesn’t stop here. If they can gerrymander now, they can and will do it before every election.”

Democrat-run California passed a new congressional map that eliminates five GOP seats in response to Texas’s new map.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against California, arguing that its new map is unconstitutional because it is allegedly race-based.

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The Imperial Judiciary Strikes Back

So far, more than 100 federal court judges have ruled against the Trump administration in hundreds of lawsuits filed by states, unions, nonprofit organizations and individuals.

While some of these rulings are fairly grounded in the Constitution, federal law, and precedent, many are expressions of primal rage from judges offended by the administration, and moving at breakneck speed to stop it. According to a Politico analysis, 87 of 114 federal judges who ruled against the administration were appointed by Democrat presidents, and 27 by Republicans. Most of the lawsuits were filed in just a few districts, with repeat activist judges leading the opposition.

Lawsuits against the administration may be filed in the District of Columbia and, often, also in other districts. Initially, cases are randomly assigned. Plaintiffs focus on districts with predominately activist, progressive judges. Because related cases are usually assigned to the same judge, later plaintiffs file in districts in which related cases were assigned to friendly activists.

Conservative judges generally believe they should interpret the law and avoid ruling on political questions, while many liberals see themselves as protectors of their values. After 60 years of domination by activist liberals, the Supreme Court and conservatives on appeals courts are finally demanding that district court judges respect the Constitution. The Supreme Court is also re-evaluating precedents established by far-left justices who substituted their values for the words and intentions embodied in the Constitution.

To date, the Supreme Court has reversed or stayed about 30 lower court injunctions blocking the administration, and appeals courts have reversed or stayed another dozen. Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson imposed an administrative stay on a district court decision requiring the immediate resumption of SNAP (food stamp) payments.

Federal judges who oppose Trump’s agenda are openly opposing the Supreme Court. In April, D.C. Chief Federal Judge James Boasberg sought to hold administration officials in criminal contempt for violating an order the court had vacated. In May, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho criticized the court’s demand that district courts act promptly on administration requests. In a September ruling, Boston Federal Judge Allison Burroughs challenged the court for expecting lower courts to treat its emergency orders as binding legal precedent.

Ten of 12 federal judges interviewed by NBC News in September, and 47 of 65 federal judges responding to a New York Times survey in October, thought the court was mishandling its emergency docket. They described orders as “incredibly demoralizing and troubling” and “a slap in the face to the district courts.”

Deservedly so. Though the Supreme Court and appeals courts judges have rebuked district court judges for ignoring higher courts and abusing their authority, they continue to do so with rulings focused on identity politics, and a progressive lens on the woes of immigrants, minorities, women, and workers. They likely expect to be reversed on appeal, but they secure wins by causing delay and creating fodder for progressive activists to rally their supporters.

There is little that can be done about these judges. Removal requires a majority vote in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate. With Democrats supporting these judges, that is unrealistic.

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Chicago Judge Orders Release of Hundreds of Criminal Illegal Aliens Arrested by ICE

A Biden-appointed federal judge in Chicago has ordered the release of hundreds of criminal migrants arrested by federal immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz.

US District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered the Trump administration to release more than 600 migrants that the judge claims were arrested in violation of a Consent Decree. Cummings has given the Department of Justice until November 19 to release the targeted migrants, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Cummings signaled his decision earlier in the week when he said he was thinking of providing what he called “equitable relief” for thousands of illegals in federal custody after he determined that the agreement had been violated by immigration agents.

The decree was signed in 2022 when President Joe Biden’s agencies agreed to accept curbs drafted by the ACLU. Judges allow consent decrees to bind future administrations.

Cummings has ruled that migrants can pay a $1,500 bond and accept some sort of monitoring — including electronic ankle monitors — and to then be released pending the outcome of their immigration proceedings.

The left-wing judge claimed that many on the list were otherwise engaged in non-criminal activities and said, “It is highly unlikely any of them are criminal gang members, drug traffickers, or assorted ne’er-do-wells who fall under the category of what ICE has called ‘the worst of the worst.”

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D.C. Appeals Court STRIKES DOWN Trump DOT’s Safety Rules — Allows Immigrants to Obtain Commercial Licenses Again Despite Fatal Florida Truck Crash

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked the Trump-Vance administration’s emergency safety rule, a rule designed to keep America’s highways safe from unvetted foreign drivers.

The court sided not with public safety, not with the families of crash victims, but with activist groups, blue-city governments, and unions who argued that asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients should continue holding commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) despite major questions about identity verification, training standards, and foreign driving histories.

The stay halts the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) new rule limiting CDLs to individuals on verifiable, trackable visa categories, H-2A, H-2B, and E-2.

The rule excluded categories where driving and identity records cannot be confirmed, including asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients.

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