Posted on 08/26/25
| News Source: Associated Press
Baltimore, MD - Aug. 26, 2025 - A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Maryland’s entire federal bench over an order by the chief judge that stopped the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen granted a request by the judges to toss the case, saying to do otherwise “would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law.”
“In their wisdom, the Constitution’s framers joined three coordinate branches to establish a single sovereign,” Cullen wrote. “That structure may occasionally engender clashes between two branches and encroachment by one branch on another’s authority. But mediating those disputes must occur in a manner that respects the Judiciary’s constitutional role.”
The White House had no immediate comment.
Cullen was nominated to the federal bench by Trump in 2020. He serves in the Western District of Virginia, but he was tapped to oversee the case because all 15 of Maryland’s federal judges are named as defendants, a highly unusual circumstance that reflects the Republican administration’s harsh response to judges who slow or stop its policies.Cullen expressed skepticism of the lawsuit during a hearing in August. He questioned why it was necessary for the Trump administration to sue all the judges as a means of challenging the order.