Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, IMMIGRATION NEWS—15 Maryland federal judges named in unusual DHS suit over standing order in deportation cases, (Jun 26, 2025)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

“This lawsuit,” according to the government’s complaint, “involves yet another regrettable example of the unlawful use of equitable powers to restrain the Executive.”

The federal government and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have sued 15 federal district court judges in Maryland—and the Clerk of the Court as well—in a Maryland federal district court concerning a standing order of the same court that pauses any removals of immigrant detainees in the state, upon the filing of a habeas corpus petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, for two business days.

Nationwide injunctions. The lawsuit, itself filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, observes, “In the first 100 days of President Trump’s current Term, district courts have entered more nationwide injunctions than in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000, requiring the Supreme Court to intervene again and again in recent weeks to pause the unlawful restraint of the President’s exercise of core Article II powers.”

Nken invoked. The challenged order here, according to the government’s suit, does “precisely what the Supreme Court has forbidden: make equitable relief a ‘matter of right’ in the District of Maryland, Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 433 (2009).”

Article II? The federal district court judges’ “automatic injunction,” says the complaint, “issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be. And it does so in the immigration context, thus intruding on core Executive Branch powers.”

Jurisdiction allegedly lacking. The complaint goes so far as to allege that “district courts lack jurisdiction to hear challenges arising from removal proceedings or to issue orders that enjoin or restrain execution of removal orders.” Instead, according to the government, Congress has “expressly and intentionally channeled challenges to removal proceedings to a specific process in the courts of appeals and imposed various other bars on judicial review.”

Executive “rob[bed]” of time. The government further argues that “Every unlawful order entered by the district courts robs the Executive Branch of its most scarce resource: time to put its policies into effect. In the process, such orders diminish the votes of the citizens who elected the head of the Executive Branch.”

Remedies sought. The suit seeks a declaration that the standing order is unlawful, as well as preliminary and permanent injunctions that would prohibit the federal district court judges from implementing it.

The docket is No. 1:25-cv-02029-CJC.

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