Judge Tosses Rare DOJ Suit Against Full US Court in Maryland (2)

A federal judge has dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the US district judges of Maryland over a standing order that blocked the immediate deportation of some detained persons.

US District Judge Thomas Cullen, who President Donald Trump appointed during his first term, said Tuesday past rulings lead to the conclusion that he has no choice but to dismiss the case.

“To hold otherwise would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law,” Cullen wrote.

He also said the lawsuit is “not ordinary” and that the executive branch must find other paths to raise its concerns with the standing order. He said the courts and the executive branch are each part of the sovereign US government.

“Regrettably, this lawsuit effectively pits two of those branches against one another,” Cullen wrote. “But it is important to remember that, at bottom, all branches—and the public officials who serve in them—share the same core sovereign interest: To support and defend the Constitution.”

A Justice Department spokesperson didn’t immediately return a request for comment. The department filed a notice of appeal.

Deportation Fights

The Trump administration filed the suit in June against the court over a standing order that blocked for two business days the deportations of detained persons who filed habeas petitions.

The order was issued amid the administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement, and a Maryland US district judge’s handling of a lawsuit from a wrongly deported Salvadoran man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

The administration initially said it couldn’t return Garcia after he was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite an earlier immigration court ruling against his removal. But he was brought back to the United States to face federal human smuggling charges in Tennessee, which he’s pleaded not guilty to. Abrego Garcia was again taken into custody by immigration officials on Monday, and is seeking to block any deportation.

Cullen said he can “appreciate” the administration’s concern that the Maryland court “encroached on its duty to police core matters of immigration.”

But he said a dispute between the judiciary should be “resolved within the constitutional structure and with due respect for the Judiciary’s co-equal standing with the executive branch,” and that he has to first ensure he has the constitutional authority to preside over the lawsuit. “In so doing, the court’s allegiance is to the Constitution,” Cullen wrote.

Judicial Immunity

Cullen found the administration lacked standing to bring the suit, saying that Supreme Court case law prevented him from issuing an injunction against a judge.

He also said the district court has sovereign immunity from the case, and that the individual judges and court officials named in the litigation have judicial immunity because it was tied to an act done in their “judicial function.”

Cullen further found there was no cause of action that allowed him to hear the lawsuit between the two branches, “and this court will not be the first to create one.”

He said the administration could’ve challenged the standing order at the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, or by petitioning the Fourth Circuit’s Judicial Council.

“The Executive acknowledges these routes are available, but it claims it chose an interbranch lawsuit because those routes are inconvenient,” Cullen wrote. “This purported inconvenience does not warrant the judicial branch’s infringement on the legislative branch’s prerogative of deciding the scope of cases federal courts may review.”

‘Not Normal Times’

The unprecedented litigation came as the administration has assailed judges who’ve ruled against its policies, with Trump even calling for impeachment and some House Republican allies filing articles of impeachment against some jurists. Chief Justice John Roberts and other top federal judges have pushed back against the use of impeachment as a response to unfavorable court rulings.

Cullen referenced the harsh rhetoric in his opinion, saying the “concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.”

He said that typically, the administration could’ve raised its challenged under other options laid out by Congress.

“But as events over the past several months have revealed, these are not normal times—at least regarding the interplay between the Executive and this coordinate branch of government,” Cullen wrote, referring to the courts. “It’s no surprise that the Executive chose a different, and more confrontational, path entirely. Instead of appealing any one of the affected habeas cases or filing a rules challenge with the Judicial Council, the Executive decided to sue—and in a big way.”

The case is United States v. Russell, D. Md., No. 1:25-cv-02029, 8/26/25.