The federal judge skeptical about the continuation of Trump against the Maryland judicial system

A judge seemed to be skeptical Wednesday of the arguments of the Ministry of Justice linked to an unusual trial that the Trump administration brought against the 15 judges of the district court of Maryland contesting an order of the court.

Justice Thomas Cullen of the western district of Virginia questioned the MJ about the trial, which alleges that the district court of Maryland exceeded its authority by imposing a permanent order which automatically takes a break in deportation cases for two days when they are deposited for the first time.

Cullen, a person named by Trump, told MJ lawyers at the start of the hearing that he was wary of their position.

“One of the things about me is that I don’t have a very good poker face, and you have probably resumed the fact that I have a skepticism,” said Cullen.

Trump DHS continues an entire bench of federal judges before the district court of Maryland for automatic injunctions

The Attorney General Pam Bondi at the Oval Office of the White House on May 6, 2025. (Francis Chung / Politico / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Federal Judge of Virginia presides over the case in Baltimore because the judges of Maryland have recused themselves. Cullen said he would make a decision of the Labor Day to find out if he would block the permanent order.

MJ lawyer Elizabeth Hedges argued during the hearing that the order of the Maryland court had the effect of “falsifying the discretion of the (American) prosecutor” on questions of application of immigration.

The ordinance obliges the clerks to immediately enter administrative injunctions which last two working days in the affairs carried by alleged illegal immigrants who dispute their detention or their moves. The injunctions have the effect of temporarily preventing the Ministry of Internal Security from deporting or modifying the legal status of an immigrant until a judge has time to review the case.

Hedges argued that the judges automatically entered the ordinances in these cases even if the court does not have jurisdiction in some of them.

President Donald Trump displays a decree signed during an auditorium ceremony from the South Court to the White House on August 5, 2025. (Kent Nishimura / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The trial, brought in June, comes when the Trump administration has taken an aggressive public posture against individual federal judges who blocked the application of many management actions of the president, including in the fields of immigration, education and federal agency reductions.

President Donald Trump complained that his agenda had been paralyzed and called for the dismissal of certain judges with whom he does not agree. But the Supreme Court has, in many cases, judges anchored and authorized Trump to temporarily implement its executive actions while the prosecution takes place before the lower courts.

Lawyer Paul Clement, arguing on behalf of the judges of Maryland, said at the hearing that there were “less conflicting” alternatives to the resolution of differences with the courts than to pursue each member of a district court.

Clement, a renowned conservative lawyer who was the former lawyer general of former president George Bush, defended the permanent order, calling it “modest effort to preserve the capacity of the judiciary to play its role assigned by the Constitution”.

“ Without law and crazy ‘

The demonstrators protest against the expulsion of immigrants in Salvador outside the permanent mission of El Salvador to the United Nations on April 24, 2025, in New York. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

Chief judge George Russell of Maryland said that he had made the ordinance permanent as a planning convenience to ensure that the “status quo” was kept when an expulsion case is filed. He quoted a “recent influx” of cases involving detained immigrants who were deposited after hours of normal audience, including weekends and holidays.

The trial represents a test of the independence of the judiciary. Clement said that it was “fundamentally incompatible” with the separation of powers.

“We simply have no tradition of combinations which are executive against judicial, executive against congress, congress against the executive,” said Clement, adding that “we do not really expect one branch to continue another to try to justify its institutional interests.”

The trial also occurs while Trump’s mass expulsion program has met with certain roadblocks while immigrants raise judicial disputes and calls to their moves.

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Perhaps the most important example occurred in Maryland, where Judge Paula Xinis, now one of the 15 defendants of the trial against the judges, ordered the government to return the National Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States to the administration of Trump.

Abrego Garcia has since been returned and faces criminal charges for transporting illegal immigrants. He pleaded not guilty.