Why do anti-Trump judges always seem to get his cases?
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who blocked President Donald Trump from deporting hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, is among the judges who have attracted attention from critics. ‘Fox News @ Night’ takes a closer look.
Federal judges who have attempted to put up roadblocks to President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts could endanger national security, according to one expert.
“It’s incredible that basically a rogue judge is putting our national security at risk when they block this enforcement action without any legal basis,” Alfonso Aguilar, a former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship and the director of Hispanic engagement at the American Principles Project, told Fox News Digital. “Swift enforcement of the law is essential to dissuade foreign actors from trying to engage in criminal behavior in our country.”
The comments come after Judge James Boasberg, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, issued an order Saturday halting one of Trump’s rapid deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
However, the order was not followed by the administration, who argued that the flight was already in the air before it got word of the judge’s order, prompting Boasberg to hold a hearing Monday that set a one-day deadline for the administration to provide more information on the flight, such as how many people it was carrying and how many of those were removed “solely on the basis” of Trump’s interpretation of the 1798 wartime-era Alien Enemies Act.
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The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, right, has raised ire among conservatives. (Getty Images)
The act, which was last invoked during World War II, provides the president broad powers to imprison or deport foreign nationals during a time of war.
A proclamation signed by Trump on Saturday claimed that gang members belonging to the Venezuelan-based gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) were “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States,” a follow-up to Trump’s move last month to designate several drug cartels, including TdA, as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
That move prompted a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, eventually resulting in Boasberg’s decision to issue a 14-day restraining order halting deportations under the act.
However, Aguilar believes the lawsuits are part of a broader strategy by opponents of the president to bog down his administration, arguing that left-wing groups have engaged in “forum shopping” for judges who they believe will be politically sympathetic to resisting Trump.
“We’ve seen it since the beginning of the administration, on every single executive order, certainly on immigration enforcement actions, is to go forum shopping, they look for a federal district judge that they know is going to be sympathetic to try to block an order or action from the administration,” Aguilar said.
William Jacobson, a Cornell University law professor and founder of the Equal Protection Project, told Fox News Digital that the trend of judges blocking Trump’s orders does raise serious legal questions.
Judge James Boasberg was appointed in 2011 by then-President Barack Obama. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty)
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“This has been an issue since the start of the Trump second administration,” Jacobson said. “There was a very highly organized effort to drown the administration in lawfare and tie it up and essentially freeze the executive branch.”
Jacobson argued that there have already been a “number of rulings” that potentially “overstepped the boundaries of separation of powers,” something he noted has already caught the attention of four justices on the Supreme Court.
“The courts are not supposed to rule on political issues,” Jacobson said. “The courts are supposed to rule on legal rights. And I think the administration’s argument is, and they make this argument in the DC Circuit, in the emergency state that’s being briefed right now, that if a judge can interfere in something like this, can a judge order the government not to issue drone strikes on terrorists abroad? Where is the limit in that the federal courts have no ability to interfere in the conduct of foreign policy, in the conduct of military action?”
Jacobson believes that the only way to rectify the situation for the administration will be for the Supreme Court to step in, issuing clear guidance to lower court judges on what they can and cannot rule on.
The Supreme Court may need to step in and rebuke lower federal courts for overreach, a legal scholar tells Fox News Digital. (Donald Trump: Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images | Supreme Court: Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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Aguilar also believes the Supreme Court will need to intervene, though he stressed that delays in the meantime could continue to spell trouble for national security.
“If you send a clear message to these individuals that if you’re coming here to commit crime or engage in terrorism, we will detain you. We will remove you immediately,” he said. “That serves as a powerful form to dissuade this type of behavior. So it does have an impact on the administration’s efforts to protect the security of our country.”
Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.