Democrats crown judges while crying about kings



“In America, we don’t do kings.” That was the message of the leftist protesters who swarmed the streets nationwide on June 14 in opposition to President Donald Trump and his agenda.

“Trump must go now!” they chanted, waving signs that likened the president to a dictator and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to his “Gestapo.” Their complaint was alleged despotism. But if Democrats really opposed authoritarianism, they wouldn’t be celebrating its emergence in the courts.

There are no kings in the United States — just a bunch of black-robed activists who seem to have forgotten the difference between ‘Your Honor’ and ‘Your Majesty.’

When U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani brazenly overstepped her authority on July 7 to block Congress from stripping Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding through the budget reconciliation bill — a clear usurpation of the legislative branch’s power of the purse — the response from the left wasn't outrage. It was praise.

"Good," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote on X. “Democrats will never stop fighting this backdoor abortion ban from the Republicans.”

— (@)

Schumer’s apparent admission that Medicaid funds abortions aside, his comments also belie his party's disingenuous indignation over supposed federal overreach.

Judges above the law

That selective outrage was on full display in April amid the arrest of a Wisconsin judge for allegedly escorting Eduardo Flores-Ruiz — an illegal immigrant who had previously been deported — out the back jury door of her courtroom to help him evade federal immigration authorities.

The ICE agents in question had a valid administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz’s arrest, yet leftists railed against efforts to hold Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan to account for her alleged obstruction.

"By arresting a sitting judge over routine courthouse management, the Trump regime has signaled its eagerness to weaponize federal power against members of the judiciary who do not align with its political agenda,” writer Mitchell Sobieski fumed in a Milwaukee Independent op-ed.

If impeding federal law enforcement now qualifies as "routine courthouse management," that's a big problem.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, a Democrat, complained that the Trump administration was “scaring people” by enforcing federal immigration law.

“They’re scaring people in this community; they’re scaring people in immigrant communities all across the United States,” Johnson told reporters.

Never mind the law-abiding U.S. citizens who remain scared that their daughters, sisters, or mothers could be the next Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, or Rachel Morin — all victims of murderers in the country illegally.

Apparently, their fears are irrelevant.

As for Dugan, her claim that “judicial immunity” precludes her from being prosecuted for alleged obstruction of justice is as monarchical as it gets.

Judges are but one facet of the American justice system, and as Democrats loved reminding us all 15 minutes ago: “No one is above the law.”

Democrats love activist judges

Of course, Democrats’ lack of interest in reining in the judiciary is nothing new. After all, the Democratic Party has long relied on activist judges to impose its will on the American public.

With Roe v. Wade in 1973, liberals leveraged a sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court to force nearly a half-century of unregulated abortion onto a country that was — and still is — deeply divided on the procedure.

In 2015, leftists used the same playbook to mandate same-sex marriage nationwide via Obergefell v. Hodges.

In the age of Trump, however, judicial activism has become an even more flagrant problem.

Last year, then-candidate Trump was frequently forced to split his time between the campaign trail and the courtroom as he fended off contrived criminal indictments and lawsuits, nearly all of which were conveniently presided over by liberal judges.

RELATED: Rogue anti-Trump judges obliterated by SCOTUS’ landmark ruling

Liudmila Chernetska via iStock/Getty Images

At the same time, radical judges in Colorado and Illinois, along with Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, attempted to strip voters of their right to decide the presidential election by removing Trump’s name from the ballot.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to quash that authoritarian plot. Unfortunately for the justices, it's a move they've had to repeat several times since the president’s inauguration in January.

In a line of cases challenging Trump’s policy pursuits, rogue district court judges have issued sweeping injunctions blocking him from implementing his agenda nationwide in cases without a class certification — a practice that the Supreme Court has lately admonished as “likely” judicial overreach.

Still, lower-court judges are finding other ways to overstep their authority. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, for example, appears to have decided that his court, not the nation's high court, reigns supreme in the land.

Monarchy reaches the highest court

Even after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted Murphy’s nationwide block on third-country deportations in June, Murphy continued to insist that the Trump administration allow six illegal immigrant defendants to challenge their removal before deporting them to a third-party country.

That move even rankled liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who had initially sided with Murphy.

“I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed,” Kagan wrote, concurring with the majority that the deportations could proceed.

Yet not even the top court is immune to political activism, it seems.

In her dissent from the court's ruling against blanket injunctions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, described the majority’s decision as “profoundly dangerous.” In her view, containing temporary judicial relief to those requesting it somehow grants the president “unchecked, arbitrary power” and “undermines our constitutional system.”

Jackson’s words were acrimonious enough that Justice Amy Coney Barrett included a stinging rebuke in the court’s ruling.

“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” Barrett wrote. “We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary.”

An imperial judiciary, indeed!

No, there are no kings in the United States — just a bunch of black-robed activists who seem to have forgotten the difference between “Your Honor” and “Your Majesty.”

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Democrats Collude With Judges To Keep Allowing Noncitizens To Vote In U.S. Elections

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Chief Justice Takes Aim At Politicians Who Use Heated Rhetoric, Raises ‘Threats Of Violence And Murder’ Against Judges

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One bad order could undermine Trump’s strongest issue



Thank God President Trump walked back his misguided order to grant de facto amnesty to illegal alien farm workers. Now he needs to kill the policy for good.

Trump won in 2016 — and again in 2024 — on two core promises: lower the cost of living and stop the third-world invasion of the United States. Since he shows no interest in cutting deficits in a way that might restore pre-COVID price levels, immigration remains the battlefield that will define his presidency. And unless he corrects course, he risks failure on that front too.

No more half measures or donor-driven compromises. No more weakness. Only total war on the policies, programs, and pipelines that keep America under siege.

To his credit, Trump moved quickly to shut off the surge at the southern border during his first week in office. But he did the same in 2017, and the long-term results didn’t last. A future Democrat administration will simply escalate. If Biden brought in 10 million, the next one will aim for 20 million.

Temporary border control and modest deportation numbers won’t solve the crisis. Fewer than a million removals over a four-year term won’t reverse the demographic or economic damage — especially while legal immigration, foreign student visas, and guest worker programs continue at record highs.

Unforced errors

Trump must go beyond symbolic border enforcement. That means neutralizing judicial interference through must-pass legislation — or ignoring illegitimate court rulings outright. He should authorize maritime deportations using ships, suspend most of the 1.5 million foreign student visas — especially from China and Islamic countries — and permanently empower states to enforce immigration law.

Instead, Trump recently unveiled a set of policies that undermine those very goals.

He announced continued access for Chinese nationals to U.S. universities — just as a spy ring was uncovered at the University of Michigan. He expanded his support for white-collar visas for Indian nationals and revived his “golden visa” scheme, which allows wealthy Chinese Communist Party elites to buy their way into U.S. citizenship.

Worst of all, Trump issued an order halting removals of illegal aliens working in farming and hospitality. He later reversed course — but the damage was done.

In pushing for more illegal labor, Trump handed leftists a talking point they had already lost. He lent moral weight to one of their core claims: that America needs illegal immigrants to do the “jobs Americans won’t do.” That argument, long peddled by George W. Bush, John McCain, and the donor-class GOP, was the very reason millions turned to Trump in the first place.

Ten years after calling for a moratorium on illegal immigration and a drastic cut to legal migration, Trump now echoes the talking points he once dismantled. If he keeps this up, he won’t just squander his mandate — he’ll cement the invasion he was elected to stop.

Five points Trump should heed

  1. You can’t re-onshore manufacturing and offshore the workforce. Trump champions tariffs to bring jobs home — but what good is that if those jobs go to foreign nationals here illegally? Patriotism means putting Americans to work on American soil — not just moving the factory.
  2. This isn’t about labor shortages. It’s about labor suppression. Trump wants more white-collar visas even as tech jobs disappear. He supports handing green cards to foreign students. This isn’t policy — it’s donor-class economics wrapped in populist branding.
  3. You can’t modernize with AI while subsidizing human labor. Trump wants to “win the AI arms race” with China. Great. Start by automating farm work instead of importing cartel-affiliated field hands. Cheap labor delays innovation — and the status quo keeps us dependent.
  4. The welfare state distorts the labor market. Trump refuses to shrink entitlements and yet complains that Americans won’t work. Maybe that’s true — but the welfare state is the push, and illegal labor is the pull. Cut both, and you raise wages and get people off the couch.
  5. Illegal labor invites cartel exploitation. Agricultural guest labor provides the perfect cover. In 2019, an exposé by the Louisville Courier Journal revealed how Mexican farm workers served as mules for the Jalisco New Generation cartel. One man, Ciro Macias Martinez, groomed horses by day at Calumet Farm — and ran a $30 million drug ring by night.

The cash-based, transient, and legally vulnerable workforce offers a logistical gold mine for transnational criminal organizations. Cartels use job scams to traffic humans, set up safe houses, and move product. Rural communities lack the law enforcement resources to push back. The result: strategic sanctuary zones for America's most dangerous enemies.

RELATED: Trump shrugs at immigration law — here’s what he should have said

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

When Trump says these workers are “hardworking” and “not criminals,” he ignores the obvious fact that every illegal alien is a criminal. Amnesty for farm workers isn’t just a policy mistake — it’s an operational gift to America’s foreign adversaries.

No room for ambiguity

Trump knows immigration is his strongest issue. The polls prove it. But if he wavers, even slightly, on mass deportations or illegal labor, he opens the door for his political enemies to sow doubt — and for cartel operatives to sow chaos.

He reversed the farm worker carve-out. Now he must bury it. Then, he needs to go farther. No more half measures. No more donor-driven compromises. No more weakness. Only total war on the policies, programs, and pipelines that keep America under siege.

His base expects it. The country needs it. The future depends on it.

Six years to removal? Inside America’s broken immigration courts



In drab, windowless rooms strung along a tight corridor, migrants who have flooded into the United States in recent years trickle before immigration judges each weekday morning.

These makeshift courtrooms are a far cry from the scorched border with Mexico and busy ports and airports through which these millions of immigrants have entered the United States, almost all illegally. But despite the differences in miles, atmosphere, and often language, the people appearing in U.S. immigration court (“alien respondents,” in legal terms) know what is afoot.

Migrants displayed a savvy understanding of immigration law that allows the adjudication of the proceedings to stretch for years.

In many cases, they are making their first appearance after being in the U.S. for years, and with careful pleadings and use of appeals, many know they can stay here for years to come. While Trump administration immigration tactics — such as arrests and deportations — dominate the headlines, the situation in court, where most of the final decisions will be made, is another thing the administration is trying to change.

“A surprising number of the aliens know how to work the system in an attempt to run out the clock on the Trump administration, by requesting serial continuances and filing frivolous or otherwise questionable appeals and by motions to reopen,” said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge now with the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes wide-open immigration. “Some will be successful, but as the recent immigration court arrests indicate, the administration is attempting to limit those efforts.”

Recently, RealClearInvestigations observed days of immigration court proceedings to gain insight into the current state of a system with a backlog of more than 3.6 million people, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks immigration court figures through monthly Freedom of Information Act requests. New Orleans is but one thread in a sprawling web of often obscure courts, stretching from Massachusetts to Washington and from Saipan to Puerto Rico.

From a first appearance to an asylum hearing, the New Orleans courts seemed busy. This reflects the fact that historically, most immigrants to the U.S. follow their legal schedule, which begins with a “Notice to Appear” being issued to them either when they are apprehended at the border or subsequently after they have been paroled into the 48 contiguous states.

RELATED: Mass deportation or bust: Trump’s one shot to get it right

Photo by VERONICA G. CARDENAS/AFP via Getty Images

“It’s never been the case that people aren’t showing up en masse,” said Kevin A. Gregg, an immigration attorney in California who hosts the weekly “Immigration Review” podcast. “The number of those who show up has always been very high, especially among people who have been in the U.S. a very long time.”

Paradoxically, however, the Trump administration’s recent vow to push arrests of illegal immigrants to 3,000 a day, along with some changes it has made to how it handles court cases, could serve to make attendance less regular, according to Gregg and others critical of Trump’s push. As attorneys and court officials told RealClearInvestigations, “Never underestimate the community,” meaning arrivals know the system from those who have gone through it before them. Now, if conventional wisdom says court appearances could lead to an earlier expulsion from the U.S., those here illegally will shy away.

“With immigration court specifically, ICE has been dismissing court proceedings in order to then immediately detain noncitizens and place them in expedited removal proceedings where they have far less rights and no eligibility for bond,” Gregg said. “Whether correct or not, many noncitizens will likely begin to view this as a trap and may not show up to immigration court out of fear. I don’t condone not showing up, of course, but I believe it’s a possible foreseeable consequence of what ICE is doing right now.”

Already, the Trump administration’s aggressive approach has sparked litigation and civil disturbances, from a Milwaukee judge allegedly helping “alien respondents” escape criminal proceedings to the recent riots in Los Angeles.

A long process

One late May morning, there were four New Orleans immigration courts operating, with a total of nearly 140 people on the docket, most of them first appearances. On this day, no-shows composed a very small percentage of those on the “master calendars,” as the morning dockets are known. In Judge Joseph La Rocca’s courtroom, for instance, only five of the more than 30 respondents listed on the master calendar did not appear; they were quickly handled “in absentia” and deemed removable.

That same day, in Judge Alberto A. De Puy’s courtroom, as many as six languages were used. The court has a Spanish translator present at all times, but for other languages, interpreters on the East Coast join by phone. In the hearings RealClearInvestigations witnessed, these involved Arabic, Hindi, Hassaniya, Turkish, and Konkani, reflecting a large percentage of Middle Eastern or Asian immigrants. Paperwork in the court’s small waiting room is available in seven languages, including Creole and Wolof, an African tongue.

De Puy’s master calendar hearing was a Zoom session with migrants at the federal detention center in Jena, Louisiana. There, men in dull gray scrubs sat in rows, while De Puy scrambled to find translators. This proceeding was further complicated by a protest outside the Jena facility, which has gained notoriety by holding the Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil and other foreign nationals arrested by federal authorities since President Trump took office.

No one knows exactly how many people appear in U.S. immigration court each day. “That would be a great statistic, wouldn’t it?” said Susan Long, director of Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. But there are more than 700 U.S. immigration judges, whom the attorney general appoints to the administrative posts under the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. If somehow the New Orleans morning sessions RealClearInvestigations followed could be extended daily to each judge’s courtroom, perhaps a dent could be made in the backlog, which includes more than 2 million pending asylum cases, according to TRAC.

That’s a fanciful assumption, of course, and at first glance, the looming numbers seem daunting to the Trump administration’s goal of sharply reducing or clearing the dockets. Still, some experts see promising signs as the figures for illegal crossings plummet.

If conventional wisdom says court appearances could lead to an earlier expulsion from the US, those here illegally will shy away.

“The situation is improving,” Arthur said. “It’s as if Trump patched a hole in the side of a boat, and now he’s bailing out the water the boat took in.”

For all the hue and cry about due process protections that have captivated activists and the federal bench over the past four months, the migrants appearing in New Orleans displayed a savvy understanding of immigration law that allows the adjudication of the proceedings to stretch for years.

The respondents sat quietly on wooden benches, in some cases accompanied by children. Most were neatly dressed and with their hair carefully braided or combed. The children appeared to be something of a prop, as each time they appeared, the judge asked that they attend school instead of court. Even on a first appearance, many of the respondents seemed to have a good idea of what would happen.

Most master calendar cases involved a “notice to appear,” and few of those were recent. For example, most of the people RCI observed in court the morning of May 22 had received their notice to appear a year and a half ago, in 2023, although a handful had received them as recently as last December.

Few of the immigrants had lawyers, which court observers called a wise move. If it was a first appearance, the judge asked if they wanted representation, noting that while the Sixth Amendment does not entitle them to an attorney, the court maintains a list of immigration attorneys who may offer their services at affordable rates or pro bono. Invariably, the person requested time to find a lawyer and thus received another court date — on these May days, that was set for seven months later in December.

For the others not requesting more time to find a lawyer, the judge rapidly read boilerplate language and determined that the person had entered the U.S. illegally and was subject to removal. At that point, the judge asked the respondents if they wanted to “designate a country for removal should removal become necessary.” Here, the respondents or their attorneys invariably declined.

This is a well-understood delay tactic that often fails. Despite the lack of response, the judge quickly set a country for removal and moved to do the same for a removal hearing. The judges perused their computer screens, presumably for scheduling purposes, and in some cases then scheduled that hearing for 2029.

In other words, almost all the “alien respondents” were given a lot more time. It was not unusual to see people having six years or more in the U.S. between the day of their arrival and a removal proceeding.

‘A lot more detention’

The legal process is different for those in detention, and attorneys and court officials told RCI that “there is a lot more detention” now under the Trump administration. Judge De Puy’s master calendar involved the detained men in Jena on one screen, with the occasional immigration lawyer cutting in from a separate office and a government lawyer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor appearing on yet another video screen.

De Puy gave those making a first appearance months to try to obtain counsel, but he was less forgiving of those who were making a second appearance and asked for more time after failing to obtain representation. Several men — all those appearing were men — requested more time, but De Puy did not grant it in the cases RCI observed.

Some men requested “voluntary departure.” Arthur said this is a ploy that, in the past, allowed immigrants to melt into the interior, thereby delaying their cases, and the government lawyer seemed to have that in mind as he agreed to “voluntary departure” only “with safeguards,” which meant the men would remain in detention until their travel arrangements were made. Just how that might happen and when, given that the migrant is responsible for them, was unclear.

RELATED: Katy Perry drops weird post in support of ICE rioters and gets nailed with a history lesson

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

There were other oddities. For example, De Puy twice asked a man from India, who entered the U.S. in December 2023, if he would like to “designate a country of removal.” After not answering the first time, the man then replied, “I can’t go back to India.”

“The court is going to designate India as the country of removal,” De Puy said immediately, at which point the man said he would “like to go back to India” and requested “voluntary departure.”

Of those migrants held at Jena who appeared that morning, only those seeking voluntary departure seemed destined to leave the U.S. soon.

The emphasis on detention is not the only major change the proceedings appeared to have under Trump, compared to when RealClearInvestigations first visited immigration court in 2022. Then, the government attorney would often offer what was dubbed “prosecutorial discretion.”

This amounted to a “get out of court free” pass. The judge told the person receiving prosecutorial discretion, “You are free to go and live your life, and the government has no interest in removing you from the country.”

Biden-era prosecutorial discretion

It’s not clear how many illegal immigrants benefited from the Biden-era prosecutorial discretion, as the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about it in 2022 or now. Those who received it were in addition to the more than 2.8 million the Biden administration simply paroled into the country immediately, a novel twist to immigration law subsequently ruled illegal by federal judges.

Under Trump, a similar step is taken with a different tone. In some instances, the Department of Homeland Security’s lawyer announced the government was “dropping charges” as the person is “no longer an enforcement priority.” Doing so does not change the fact that these people have previously been ruled “removable,” and by dropping the charges, the Department of Homeland Security can arrest and deport the illegal immigrant.

Of those migrants who appeared in court that morning, only those seeking voluntary departure seemed destined to leave the US soon.

That has led to arrests right outside immigration courts from Boston to New Orleans and elsewhere. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can’t be outside every courtroom every day, this emphatic new move is precisely the one that could lead immigrants to eschew court as word spreads in the community about what is happening.

Judge La Rocca seemed concerned about this development, which, like some of the novel twists to immigration law under the Biden administration, has sparked federal litigation. At one point, when the government suddenly moved to drop the charges, La Rocca asked the immigrant if he wanted to accept that arrangement, which would leave him “without status” and still eligible for removal, or if he wished to continue to a removal proceeding. The overarching message was that the U.S. may move to deport the person.

La Rocca warned the government to be up front about what this might mean for the respondent, saying he “had heard of cases where he walked out the door and was arrested.”

Although the administration has endured criticism over the lack of due process for migrants deported on planes to El Salvador, judges in New Orleans unfailingly made clear to those in court the options available to them. In nearly every case, when the judge asked a person if he wanted to request asylum, the answer was “yes.”

Seeking asylum

That requires another future court date, usually years down the road. Asylum proceedings are not open to the public absent approval from the judge and the seeker, but RCI obtained such permission to witness two hearings.

In the first, a couple from Honduras who came to the United States in April 2022 had requested asylum on the grounds that they were afraid to return. The woman testified that her brother had been murdered and that when they tried to bring information about the case to Honduran police, in a town hours away from their hometown, a masked man brandished a gun at them. Suspicious cars then began to lurk around their home.

The government attorney asked why they could not move somewhere else in Honduras, or if they had tried to go anywhere other than the U.S. They had not, they testified. The husband said his sister is associated with drug gangs, and consequently, the couple did not feel safe anywhere in Honduras. The woman testified she never planned to immigrate, but for their family’s welfare, they fled here.

La Rocca considered the case privately for some 90 minutes, then denied the asylum application. He told the couple he believed their testimony, but that their case did not meet the asylum requirements, which specify credible evidence that the applicant fears discrimination at home because of race, sex, religion, membership in social groups, or fear of torture.

RELATED: Majority of Americans support deportation of all illegal immigrants

Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images

But that does not end the couple’s immigration court odyssey. La Rocca asked if they wished to appeal his decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. When they said they did, La Rocca told them they must file that appeal in the next 30 days, which would lead to yet another court appearance.

The second hearing RCI witnessed was before Judge Eric Marsteller. That case involved a 2022 application from an El Salvador woman and her two sons, who have each also filed separate asylum claims.

For unclear reasons, the woman’s attorneys withdrew in February, and she told Marsteller that she had been unable to find a replacement since then. Although she has family in the U.S. — a sister who has been granted asylum, a brother, and her mother — all of the supporting evidence for her claim of horrific abuse from her father came from a letter sent by a former partner in El Salvador.

Marsteller accepted the letter but told her it couldn’t be entered into the record because it was in Spanish. A man in court, identified as her stepfather, stated that the woman and her sons live with him in Louisiana, and he informed the judge that he would be responsible for them.

After more than an hour of the hearing, during which the sons departed the courtroom when the woman described her allegations of abuse, Marsteller asked the government for its position. The government attorney informed the court that the notice the woman had received was for a master calendar appearance, not an asylum hearing. Startled, Marsteller was forced to schedule another hearing. It will be in December 2026.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

Trump Should Force Congress And SCOTUS To Stop Rogue Judges By Ignoring Unconstitutional Injunctions

By continuing to face this crisis with appeals to higher courts, the president is bringing a knife to a gun fight. He should instead bring a howitzer.

Trump’s truth about ‘due process’ has the left melting down



Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

RELATED: Trump shrugs at immigration law — here’s what he should have said

Photo by: Rodrigo Varela/NBC via Getty Images

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

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Rubio hammers Van Hollen over his MS-13 margarita date, emphasizes judicial limits



Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified Tuesday before his former colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the State Department's fiscal year 2026 budget request. Democratic senators seized upon the opportunity to attack Rubio and the Trump administration, characterizing the government's foreign policy as regressive, oppressive, and isolationist.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), in particular, complained about the house-cleaning executed at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the cancellation of radical foreigners' student visas, the deportation of criminal noncitizens, and the admission of white refugees from South Africa.

Rubio coolly dismantled Democrats' critiques and drove home the message that mature foreign policy "requires a balancing of interests"; that the U.S. is not withdrawing from the world but engaging in a way that "makes America stronger, safer, and more prosperous"; and that he does not answer to meddlesome federal judges when it comes to foreign policy engagements abroad.

Van Hollen, fresh off trying to bring a Salvadoran MS-13 affiliate accused of domestic abuse and human trafficking back into the U.S., told Rubio, "Like the McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s, your campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy."

RELATED: Liberals rage after Trump welcomes white refugees to US: 'Farce and a sham'

Newly arrived South Africans wait to hear welcome statements from U.S. government officials near Washington Dulles International Airport. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

"I have to tell you directly and personally," continued Van Hollen, "that I regret voting for you for secretary of state."

Rubio immediately made Van Hollen regret his closing statement, replying, "First of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job."

The secretary of state then explained why the Democrat was off the mark about the changes at USAID — Van Hollen suggested cuts at the agency have already led to deaths in Sudan — and other actions taken by the administration in recent months.

"I'm very proud of the work we've done over at the USAID," said Rubio. "For example, I don't regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique. I don't know how that makes us stronger or more prosperous as a nation."

'The evidence is going to be clear in the days to come.'

"I could go on and on," continued Rubio, running down a list of other wasteful USAID grants and programs eliminated under his leadership.

Rubio then addressed a matter near and dear to Van Hollen's heart: the deportation of suspected terrorist gang members to El Salvador.

RELATED: Dems' favorite MS-13 associate ran human trafficking operations, says ex-boss

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

"We deported gang members, gang members — including the one you had a margarita with," said Rubio. "And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gangbanger, and ... the evidence is going to be clear in the days to come."

'The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.'

Rubio was referring to MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national the Trump administration deported on March 15.

Van Hollen is chief among the Democrats who have tried to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite his initial illegal entry into the homeland, his failure to appear for hearings on traffic violations, the domestic abuse allegations lodged against him, his links to a terrorist gang, his identification by two immigration courts as a danger to the community, and his alleged history of human trafficking.

Last month, Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and shared an intimate moment over drinks.

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Van Hollen, enraged by the margarita comment, tried to interject, but Committee Chairman James Risch (R-Idaho) cleared Rubio to continue setting the Democrat straight, this time about the separation of powers.

"The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy. No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I need to say to them. And if I do reach to that foreign partner and talk to them, I am under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch," said Rubio. "Just like a judge cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister of Russia, they cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister or the president of El Salvador."

'If you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa.'

Rubio's issue with the judiciary is not hypothetical. An Obama judge ordered the Trump administration on April 4 to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

"If I started sharing with courts or the media my conversations with foreign leaders and all of their details, no foreign leader would talk to me again, and we would break trust with them," added Rubio. "Diplomacy doesn't work that way."

The secretary of state also addressed Van Hollen's concerns about terminating radical foreigners' student visas, stressing that visas are a privilege, not a right, and that "if you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, I'm going to find you, and I'm going to revoke it."

Blaze News reached out to the State Department for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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Trump shrugs at immigration law — here’s what he should have said



When NBC’s Kristen Welker asked President Trump last Sunday whether illegal aliens have due process rights, he hedged.

“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials,” Trump replied on “Meet the Press.”

That’s not even close to good enough. Trump should have responded clearly and forcefully: While everyone enjoys due process before being criminally punished, deportation is not punishment. It’s an administrative action that flows from national sovereignty.

Illegal aliens do not possess the same due process rights as citizens. They can make their case to immigration officials — but those officials retain full discretion to deny their request and carry out removal. We’re not jailing these people; they are free to return home on their own. If they refuse, we remove them — just like any homeowner would remove a trespasser.

The analogy is simple. If a burglar breaks into your home, you can’t torture or imprison him without a trial. But you absolutely can — and should — force him to leave.

That’s why deportation proceedings don’t come with government-funded lawyers. The law is clear: “In any removal proceedings before an immigration judge ... the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented (at no expense to the Government) by such counsel.”

The United States must enforce its borders — not apologize for them.

Trump’s hesitation creates the impression that illegal aliens do enjoy full due process under immigration law — but implementing it would just be too hard. That argument doesn’t persuade. The American people don’t want laws ignored simply because enforcing them is difficult.

Welker pushed further: “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”

Trump replied: “I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

But we should never confuse what the Supreme Court says with what the Constitution requires. The court has long recognized that immigration law operates under different standards. The power to exclude or remove aliens lies entirely with Congress and the executive branch, not the judiciary.

What the founders, Supreme Court, and Constitution say

The constitutional, statutory, and philosophical basis for removing aliens without full judicial due process is overwhelming. The historical record speaks for itself:

1. Gouverneur Morris, Constitutional Convention debates (1787):

“Every society from a great nation down to a club had the right of declaring the conditions on which new members should be admitted, there can be room for no complaint.”

2. William Rawle, “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America” (2nd edition):

“In a republic the sovereignty resides essentially, and entirely in the people. Those only who compose the people, and partake of this sovereignty are citizens, they alone can elect, and are capable of being elected to public offices, and of course they alone can exercise authority within the community: they possess an unqualified right to the enjoyment of property and personal immunity, they are bound to adhere to it in peace, to defend it in war, and to postpone the interests of all other countries to the affection which they ought to bear for their own.”

3. Chief Justice John Marshall, The Exchange v. McFaddon (1812):

“The jurisdiction of the nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute. It is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself. Any restriction upon it deriving validity from an external source would imply a diminution of its sovereignty to the extent of the restriction and an investment of that sovereignty to the same extent in that power which could impose such restriction. All exceptions, therefore, to the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself. They can flow from no other legitimate source.”

4. Nishimura Ekiu v. United States (1892):

“It is an accepted maxim of international law that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe.”

5. Chae Chan Ping v. United States (1889):

“That the government of the United States, through the action of the legislative department, can exclude aliens from its territory is a proposition which we do not think open to controversy. Jurisdiction over its own territory to that extent is an incident of every independent nation. It is a part of its independence. If it could not exclude aliens it would be to that extent subject to the control of another power.”

6. Kansas v. Colorado (1907):

“Self-preservation is the highest right and duty of a Nation.”

The right to deport is an extension of the right to exclude

7. Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893):

“The right of a nation to expel or deport foreigners who have not been naturalized, or taken any steps towards becoming citizens of the country, rests upon the same grounds, and is as absolute and unqualified as the right to prohibit and prevent their entrance into the country.”

8. Justice James Iredell, Charge to Grand Jury (1799):

“Any alien coming to this country must or ought to know, that this being an independent nation, it has all the rights concerning the removal of aliens which belong by the law of nations to any other; that while he remains in the country in the character of an alien, he can claim no other privilege than such as an alien is entitled to, and consequently, whatever [risk] he may incur in that capacity is incurred voluntarily, with the hope that in due time by his unexceptionable conduct, he may become a citizen of the United States.”

9. Emer de Vattel, “The Law of Nations” (1797):

“Every nation has the right to refuse to admit a foreigner into the country, when he cannot enter without putting the nation in evident danger, or doing it a manifest injury. ... Thus, also, it has a right to send them elsewhere, if it has just cause to fear that they will corrupt the manners of the citizens; that they will create religious disturbances, or occasion any other disorder, contrary to the public safety. In a word, it has a right, and is even obliged, in this respect, to follow the rules which prudence dictates.”

Courts have no jurisdiction to interfere

10. Lem Moon Sing v. United States (1895):

“The power of Congress to exclude aliens altogether from the United States, or to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which they may come to this country, and to have its declared policy in that regard enforced exclusively through executive officers, without judicial intervention, is settled by our previous adjudications.”

11. Knauff v. Shaughnessy (1950):

“The admission of aliens to this country is not a right, but a privilege, which is granted only upon such terms as the United States prescribes. … The decision to admit or to exclude an alien may be lawfully placed with the [p]resident, who may in turn delegate the carrying out of this function to a responsible executive officer. ... The action of the executive officer under such authority is final and conclusive. Whatever the rule may be concerning deportation of persons who have gained entry into the United States, it is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien.”

12. Fiallo v. Bell (1977):

“This Court has repeatedly emphasized that ‘over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over’ the admission of aliens.”

13. Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952):

“We think that, in the present state of the world, it would be rash and irresponsible to reinterpret our fundamental law to deny or qualify the Government’s power of deportation. ... Reform in this field must be entrusted to the branches of the Government in control of our international relations and treatymaking powers. We hold that the Act is not invalid under the Due Process Clause.”

Due process does not guarantee entry or residency

14. Lem Moon Sing v. U.S. (1895):

“As to such persons [non-citizens wishing to remain in the U.S.], the decisions of executive or administrative officers, acting within powers expressly conferred by [C]ongress, are due process of law.”

15. Galvan v. Press (1954):

“Policies pertaining to the entry of aliens and their right to remain here are peculiarly concerned with the political conduct of government ... that the formulation of these policies is entrusted exclusively to Congress has become about as firmly imbedded ... as any aspect of our government.”

16. Justice Robert Jackson (dissenting), Shaughnessy v. Mezei (1953):

“Due process does not invest any alien with a right to enter the United States, nor confer on those admitted the right to remain against the national will.”

Deportation is not punishment

17. Turner v. Williams (1904):

“No limits can be put by the courts upon the power of Congress to protect, by summary methods, the country from the advent of aliens. ... But to declare unlawful residence within the country to be an infamous crime, punishable by deprivation of liberty and property, would be to pass out of the sphere of constitutional legislation unless provision were made that the fact of guilt should first be established by a judicial trial.”

18. Fong Yue Ting v. U.S. (1893):

“The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime. It is not a banishment, in the sense in which that word is often applied. ... It is but a method of enforcing the return to his own country of an alien who has not complied with the conditions.”

Trump never should have equivocated on immigration law — or deferred to his lawyers. The Constitution, the courts, America’s founders, and common sense all say the same thing: Noncitizens do not enjoy an absolute right to remain in the United States. Deportation does not violate due process because deportation is not punishment. It is the lawful exercise of sovereignty.

The United States must enforce its borders — not apologize for them.

Reconciliation or capitulation: Trump’s final go-for-broke play



“Sovereignty” may have won the Kentucky Derby. But if it’s going to win in Washington, Republicans need to stop stalling and start delivering.

Many of us backed Donald Trump in 2024 with a clear, urgent checklist of national priorities. None matter more than mass deportations. Only one real legislative vehicle remains to force the issue: budget reconciliation.

If Republicans won’t use the reconciliation bill to cut inflation, they should at least use it to shut down the invasion.

Let’s be blunt. Republicans have no plan to cut spending. The only debate is how much debt they’ll add. That leaves mass deportations as the last major policy goal still backed by both the White House and much of the GOP.

Yet under current judicial norms, each of the 20 million deportations could require a court fight. At this pace, Trump would remove fewer than 1 million people by the end of his term — only to be followed by a radical Democrat ready to usher in 20 million more.

What’s the solution?

The House Judiciary Committee earmarked $81.4 billion for ICE and deportation-related activities in its reconciliation bill. But that money means nothing — worse, it only inflates the debt — if we don’t fix the lawfare loopholes and end the legal incentives that fuel this invasion.

This isn’t just about funding. It’s a matter of policy. The final reconciliation bill must include structural legal reforms. Otherwise, the invasion continues — with billions wasted in the process.

According to sources, congressional allies plan to attach an amendment to upcoming legislation that would put an end to immigration-related lawfare once and for all.

The proposal would bar anyone who isn’t a green card holder — including all illegal aliens and temporary visa holders — from gaining standing in Article III courts to challenge their deportation. In other words, rulings by immigration judges would be final. Unless the government seeks to imprison someone on criminal charges, no foreign national has a due-process right to remain in the country against the national will. The bill simply reaffirms long-standing principles that activist judges have chipped away at for years.

The amendment also tackles lawfare targeting red states trying to enforce immigration laws. Once Trump leaves office, a legal backstop must be in place to prevent a fresh wave of illegal immigration from overrunning states like Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Idaho.

Federal judges have repeatedly blocked these states from criminalizing illegal presence. This bill would strip federal courts of jurisdiction in such cases. Any legal challenge would go through state courts instead, making state supreme court rulings final and beyond the reach of federal review.

Unless Trump starts ignoring rogue judicial rulings, this legislation is his only realistic path to carrying out mass deportations.

He must go all in and make it clear to Congress that he won’t accept procedural excuses about the Byrd Rule or Senate parliamentarian objections. The Senate majority can overrule the parliamentarian — something they already plan to do to pass tax cuts.

This is Trump’s moment to force the issue. No more delays. No more legal sabotage. No more excuses.

The House Judiciary Committee’s draft of the major spending bill includes a provision aimed at curbing judicial abuse — but it doesn’t go far enough.

The measure would require judges to collect a bond from plaintiffs seeking injunctions against the federal government. If they fail to collect it, their rulings would be void under Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

But the reform is too narrow to matter. The NGOs suing to block immigration enforcement have deep pockets. Judges can easily set token bond amounts that do nothing to deter meritless lawsuits.

Still, the provision proves a vital point: Republican leadership is willing to include policy-related language in a reconciliation bill when it suits them. That means nothing prevents them from going further and defunding litigation aimed at sabotaging deportations.

This is Trump’s last real chance to salvage his immigration agenda. Reconciliation offers his clearest shot at using party control to pursue an objective he can’t afford to lose.

If Republicans won’t use the reconciliation bill to cut inflation, they should at least use it to shut down the invasion.