Politics
JUST IN: Federal Judge Ignores Supreme Court In Shocking ‘Judicial Coup’
A Biden-appointed judge appeared to rebuff a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Monday, bucking legal precedent by blocking deportation orders for eight migrants targeted for expedited removal.
The decision may have violated a Supreme Court ruling issued just hours earlier streamlining the Trump administration’s path for deporting the eight individuals to third-party countries. Officials previously lamented that they were unable to return some migrants to their home countries after authorities there refused to accept them.
The high court’s ruling paused a previous injunction by Judge Brian Murphy, which temporarily allowed migrants in custody to argue in court that deportation to a third-party country such as Sudan would pose an imminent safety threat.
But Murphy, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, appeared to disregard being overruled when he blocked the deportation of eight individuals currently housed at a U.S. naval base in Djibouti to South Sudan.
In his opinion, the federal district judge cites Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion, not the majority opinion of the Supreme Court.
Sotomayor had written her belief that Murphy’s “remedial orders are not properly before this Court because the Government has not appealed them, nor sought a stay pending a forthcoming appeal,” according to the Daily Caller.
“All eight individuals—none of whom have final removal orders to South Sudan—are being deprived of basic procedural rights and access to protection that Congress and the Constitution require,” lawyers for the eight illegal immigrants wrote to Murphy on Monday. “Absent injunctive relief, these class members face imminent risk of deportation to a volatile country where they likely will face indefinite detention and other forms of torture.”
On Tuesday, lawyers for the Trump administration called Murphy’s abrupt decision “unprecedented defiance” of the Supreme Court.
“The district court’s ruling of last night is a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the Executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals,” Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices.
“For over two months now, the Executive has labored under an injunction that this Court yesterday deemed unenforceable,” Sauer continued. “This Court should immediately make clear that the district court’s enforcement order has no effect, and put a swift end to the ongoing irreparable harm to the Executive Branch and its agents, who remain under baseless threat of contempt as they are forced to house dangerous criminal aliens at a military base in the Horn of Africa that now lies on the borders of a regional conflict.”
Appearing on Fox News, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told viewers to “expect fireworks” on Tuesday in Boston, where Judge Murphy presides.
“Sean, in a little bit of breaking news is that the District Court Judge in Boston has said he’s gonna defy the Supreme Court’s ruling, so expect fireworks tomorrow when we hold this judge accountable for refusing to obey the Supreme Court.”
“A Boston judge halted the deportation of illegal aliens convicted of child rape and murder,” Miller wrote on X. “Finally, the Supreme Court stepped in and halted the judge’s lawless edict. Late last night, the Boston judge claimed authority to overrule the Supreme Court and defied the Court’s order.”
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Sotomayor’s opinion was joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, who wrote that they “cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.”
“Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied,” Sotomayor wrote.
