America has immigration laws — just not in these courtrooms



If Donald Trump put on a black robe tomorrow and issued an opinion in an intellectual property dispute between two tech companies, no one would treat it as binding law. So why are we expected to treat judicial policymaking on immigration and national security as untouchable — especially when lower courts now openly defy higher courts?

One of the most damaging misconceptions in American government holds that the Supreme Court is “supreme” over the political branches in all things. At most, its supremacy runs within the judicial hierarchy: It can overrule lower federal courts. The same goes for the courts of appeals, which are supposed to bind district courts within their circuits.

If lower courts refuse deference to their judicial bosses, why should the president keep extending deference to either level when the law is on his side?

That system, however, increasingly operates as a one-way ratchet for left-wing political outcomes.

On February 6, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finally reaffirmed a basic legal principle: Illegal aliens seeking admission are not entitled to enter the country, demand release, and then litigate their way into residency while living freely inside the United States. The court upheld long-standing precedent and the plain text of U.S. immigration law, which requires detention of inadmissible aliens pending disposition of their cases.

Congress enacted that provision in 1996 for an obvious reason: to prevent people from entering illegally, receiving a notice to appear, and then disappearing into the interior.

Unlike American criminals who are entitled to bond hearings, illegal aliens are not being prosecuted for a crime. They can always voluntarily depart and live freely in their home countries. Being detained is a consequence of their initial invasion and their desire to litigate their way into our country.

Then came the district courts.

Just three days after the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, Judge Kathleen Cardone, an El Paso-based George W. Bush appointee, ordered the release of aliens in five cases on the theory that they had “established roots” in the United States. What, then, was the point of the Fifth Circuit ruling? Cardone claimed in one case that it “has no bearing on this Court’s determination of whether [the petitioner] is being detained in violation of his constitutional right to procedural due process.”

Likewise, on February 9, Judge David Briones, an El Paso-based Clinton appointee, reached a similar conclusion. “The Court reiterates its original holding that noncitizens who have ‘established connections’ in the United States by virtue of living in the country for a substantial period acquire a liberty interest in being free from government detention without due process of law,” Briones wrote — about an illegal alien who entered the country in 2024.

Pause there.

The Fifth Circuit had just ruled that detention is mandated by statute even in cases involving aliens who entered long ago (including plaintiffs from 2001 and 2009). Yet a district judge somehow concluded that ruling does not apply to someone who crossed illegally in 2024. Worse, how can a district judge claim the Fifth Circuit did not account for the “constitutional” question when the appeals court’s ruling necessarily presumes ICE’s conduct is constitutional?

RELATED: The Fifth Circuit cracks down on the asylum excuse factory

ozgurdonmaz via iStock/Getty Images

These judges are cherry-picking language from select Supreme Court opinions about aliens with “established ties” while ignoring the far stronger body of law recognizing that illegal entrants have no right to remain in the country against the national will. The idea that someone can break into the country, evade enforcement long enough to create “ties,” and then use that evasion as a legal shield makes a mockery of popular sovereignty and of the Declaration’s first principles.

This also demonstrates, again, why the Trump administration cannot comply its way out of judicial supremacism. Even when it wins in higher courts, lower-court judges can repackage the same result in a new case and keep obstructing enforcement. Why should Trump defer reflexively to congressionally created judges who refuse to defer even to their own superiors within the judiciary?

That point came into focus in Ninth Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke’s dissent from his court’s decision to halt the deportation of a Peruvian family while the appeal proceeds. Referring to the Ninth Circuit as a “wackadoo” court, VanDyke described what he said has become an automatic practice: granting stays of removal even when Supreme Court immigration precedent clearly points the other way.

In effect, he argued, the court uses procedural orders and an ever-expanding shadow docket to nullify precedent without formally issuing rulings that openly defy it.

Because of the circuit’s heavy caseload, VanDyke wrote, judges adopted a “convenient, but unwritten, practice” of granting preliminary relief in the form of administrative stays pending review. Those stays often remain in place until the merits are decided. The result, he said, is a system that “disregard[s] Supreme Court precedent and award[s] automatic, extended stays of removal in utterly meritless immigration appeals.”

Defenders of the Ninth Circuit might say the court is overloaded and must rely on lengthy interim stays. VanDyke’s point, however, is that this indulgence appears uniquely generous in deportation cases. As he put it, the Ninth Circuit’s internal dialogue sounds like “a judicial Oprah Winfrey, confused by her own popularity.”

His satirical version of the court’s approach was devastating:

We are… ("You get a stay!")… sincerely shocked… ("You get a stay!")… by the… ("You get a stay!")… number of… ("You get a stay!")… utterly… ("You get a stay!")… meritless… ("You get a stay!")… immigration petitions… ("You get a stay! And you get a stay! And you get a stay!")… that are filed… ("You get a stay!")… in our court. ("Everyone gets a stay!").

That is the point. When it comes to many liberal judges — who still dominate too many panels — law is often just a vehicle for politics. They will reach the result they want by whatever procedural route is available. You cannot simply “out-appeal” a judiciary willing to ignore controlling law while pretending not to.

RELATED: We escaped King George. Why do we bow to King Judge?

Valerii Evlakhov via iStock/Getty Images

A Politico review of thousands of ICE detention cases found that at least 360 judges rejected ICE’s broader detention policies in more than 3,000 cases, while just 27 judges backed those policies in about 130 cases. The overwhelming pattern is plain: Judges are sidelining the text of the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Supreme Court’s plenary power doctrine, which affirms broad executive authority over the detention and removal of illegal aliens.

No Supreme Court ruling, by itself, will stop judges committed to creative procedural sabotage.

Lawlessness begets lawlessness. It is grimly fitting that in an era when invaders are encouraged to dictate terms to citizens, inferior courts now side with them while dictating terms to superior courts.

If lower courts refuse deference to their judicial bosses, why should the president keep extending deference to either level when the law is on his side?

Politico: Judges Use ‘Workarounds’ To ‘Bypass’ Pro-Trump Rulings On Immigration

The judges highlighted by Politico are not outliers, in fact, they are emblematic of an activist judiciary that defies constitutional limits.

Judge Ho Takes A Sledgehammer To Judicial Supremacy And Its ‘Elite’ Enablers

'If the American people can’t expect the judiciary to stay in its lane, then federal judges shouldn’t expect the American people to follow them.'

The courts are running the country — and Trump is letting it happen



One of the most consequential developments of 2025 has received far less scrutiny than it deserves: the steady surrender of executive authority to an unelected judiciary.

President Trump was elected to faithfully execute the laws of the United States, yet his administration increasingly behaves as if federal judges hold final authority over every major policy decision — including those squarely within the president’s constitutional and statutory powers.

Judicial supremacy thrives on abdication. It advances because presidents comply, lawmakers defer, and voters are told this arrangement is normal.

By backing down whenever district courts issue sweeping injunctions, the administration is reinforcing a dangerous precedent: that no executive action is legitimate until the judiciary permits it. That assumption has no basis in the Constitution, but it is rapidly becoming the governing norm.

The problem became unmistakable when federal judges began granting standing to abstract plaintiffs challenging Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to protect ICE agents under attack. Many assumed such cases would collapse on appeal. Instead, the Supreme Court last week declined to lift an injunction blocking the Guard’s deployment in Illinois, signaling that the judiciary now claims authority to second-guess core commander-in-chief decisions.

Over the dissent of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch, the court allowed the Seventh Circuit’s decision to stand. That ruling held that violent attacks on ICE agents in Chicago did not amount to a “danger of rebellion” sufficient to justify Guard deployment and did not “significantly impede” the execution of federal immigration law.

That conclusion alone should alarm anyone who still believes in separation of powers.

No individual plaintiff alleged personal injury by a Guardsman. No constitutional rights were violated. The plaintiff was the state of Illinois itself, objecting to a political determination made by the president under statutory authority granted by Congress. Courts are not empowered to adjudicate such abstract disputes over executive judgment.

Even if judges disagree with the president’s assessment of the threat environment, their opinion carries no greater constitutional weight than his. The commander in chief is charged with executing the laws and protecting federal personnel. Courts are not.

If judges can decide who has standing, define the scope of their own authority, and then determine the limits of executive power, constitutional separation of powers collapses entirely. What remains is not judicial review but judicial supremacy.

And that is precisely what we are witnessing.

Courts now routinely insert themselves into immigration enforcement, national security decisions, tariff policy, federal grants, personnel disputes, and even the content of government websites. The unelected, life-tenured branch increasingly functions as a super-legislature and shadow executive, vetoing or mandating policy at will.

RELATED: Judges break the law to stop Trump from enforcing it

Cemile Bingol via iStock/Getty Images

What, then, remains for the people acting through elections?

If judges control immigration, spending, enforcement priorities, and foreign policy, why bother holding congressional or presidential elections at all? The Constitution’s framers never intended courts to serve as the ultimate policymakers. They were designed to be the weakest branch, confined to resolving concrete cases involving actual injuries.

Trump’s defenders often argue that patience and compliance will eventually produce favorable rulings. That belief is not only naïve — it is destructive.

For every narrow win Trump secures on appeal, the so-called institutionalist bloc on the court — Chief Justice John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — uses it to justify adverse outcomes elsewhere. Worse, because lower courts enjoin nearly every significant action, the administration rarely reaches the Supreme Court on clean constitutional grounds. The damage is done long before review occurs.

Consider the clearest example of all: the power of the purse.

Congress passed a budget reconciliation bill explicitly defunding Planned Parenthood. The bill cleared both chambers and was signed into law. Under the Constitution, appropriations decisions belong exclusively to Congress.

Yet multiple federal judges have enjoined that provision, effectively ordering the executive branch to continue sending taxpayer dollars to abortion providers in defiance of enacted law. Courts have not merely interpreted the statute; they have overridden it.

That raises an unavoidable question: Does the president have a duty to enforce the laws of Congress — or to obey judicial demands that contradict them?

Continuing to fund Planned Parenthood after Congress prohibited it is not neutrality. It is executive acquiescence to judicial nullification of legislative power.

The same pattern appears elsewhere.

Security clearances fall squarely within executive authority, yet the first Muslim federal judge recently attempted to block the president from denying clearance to a politically connected lawyer. Immigration, long recognized as a sovereign prerogative, has been transformed by courts into a maze of invented rights for noncitizens — including a supposed First Amendment right to remain in the country while promoting Hamas.

States fare no better. When West Virginia sought to ban artificial dyes from its food supply, an Obama-appointed federal judge intervened. When states enact laws complementing federal immigration enforcement, courts strike them down. But sanctuary laws that obstruct federal authority often receive judicial protection.

Heads, illegal aliens win. Tails, the people lose.

RELATED: The imperial judiciary strikes back

Moor Studio via iStock/Getty Images

What we are witnessing is adverse possession — squatter’s rights — of constitutional power. As Congress passes fewer laws and the executive hesitates to assert its authority, courts eagerly fill the vacuum. In 2025, Congress enacted fewer laws than in any year since at least 1989. Meanwhile, judges effectively “passed” nationwide policies affecting millions of Americans.

This did not happen overnight. Judicial supremacy thrives on abdication. It advances because presidents comply, lawmakers defer, and voters are told this arrangement is normal.

It is not.

Trump cannot comply his way out of this crisis. No president can. A system in which courts claim final authority over every function of government is incompatible with republican self-rule.

The Constitution does not enforce itself. Separation of powers exists only if each branch is willing to defend its role.

Right now, the presidency is failing that test.

Judges break the law to stop Trump from enforcing it



Nearly 30 years ago, Congress recognized that the country could not litigate its way out of an immigration crisis.

As part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, bipartisan majorities created expedited removal for anyone who failed to prove two years of physical presence in the United States. Anticipating a cottage industry of defense attorneys forcing the government to prove duration of unlawful stay, Congress also stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to review expedited removal orders.

At some point, the executive must defend not only its own authority but Congress’ authority to restrain the courts.

Three decades passed with little enforcement. Now, after that long dormancy, federal judges have begun reviewing cases they have no statutory authority to hear and are attempting to block President Trump from using expedited removal nationwide.

Over the line

On November 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit refused the Justice Department’s request for a stay in Make the Road New York v. Noem. The case challenges Trump’s policy expanding expedited removal to illegal aliens apprehended anywhere in the country, provided they cannot prove two years of continuous presence. Administrations since the 1990s ignored the statute and limited expedited removal to aliens caught at or near the border.

A district judge, despite clear statutory limits, reviewed the case and issued an injunction against most uses of expedited removal. That move set the stage for this week’s order from the D.C. Circuit — another step in a long pattern of courts seizing authority Congress explicitly withheld.

A watershed moment

The Supreme Court recently upheld the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to quickly remove alien gang members. That ruling helped, but it cannot resolve the broader problem: Most illegal entrants do not fall into the “enemy combatant” category. If every non-gang-member can exhaust layer after layer of due process after invading our country, immigration enforcement collapses under its own weight.

But the central issue in this dispute is not due process at all. The decisive point is that IRAIRA explicitly authorizes expedited removal anywhere in the country and explicitly bars the federal courts from issuing “declaratory, injunctive, or other equitable relief” in any action challenging an expedited removal order.

The lone exception applies to aliens who can prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that they possess a lawful right to remain — such as a granted asylum application. Even then, Congress set a firm 60-day window to bring such a claim. The plaintiffs in this case missed that deadline.

This challenge does not implicate the validity of an executive action. It represents a double violation of statute: courts ignoring the law that authorizes expedited removal and ignoring the law that strips them of jurisdiction to review it. Congress anticipated this exact scenario and barred it.

What Congress must do

Congress holds plenary authority over immigration and total authority over the structure and jurisdiction of federal courts. Only adjudication of a specific case lies beyond congressional reach. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in Patchak v. Zinke, “When Congress strips federal courts of jurisdiction, it exercises a valid legislative power no less than when it lays taxes, coins money, declares war, or invokes any other power that the Constitution grants it.”

If judges can decide every political question, define the scope of their own power, override Congress’ limits, and bind the executive even when Congress lawfully precludes them from hearing a case, the separation of powers collapses. At some point, the executive must defend not only its own authority but Congress’ authority to restrain the courts.

RELATED: The imperial judiciary strikes back

Photo by ClassicStock/Getty Images

Just say ‘no’

Many of us have called for broader statutes stripping courts of jurisdiction over deportation. But that effort means nothing if judges can simply declare those statutes unconstitutional. Judicial supremacism has no end when the executive enforces judicial usurpation against itself.

That dynamic played out again last week. A federal judge ruled that ICE may not arrest illegal aliens solely for being in the country unlawfully unless agents obtain a warrant or prove a specific flight risk — an order that contradicts decades of law. In another case, Judge Sunshine Suzanne Sykes in California certified a class granting relief to migrants who “have entered or will enter the United States without inspection” as well as those not initially detained after crossing the border.

A government that treats judicial decrees as binding even when Congress denies jurisdiction invites a permanent veto from judges over immigration enforcement. It won’t stop until the president simply says no.

The imperial judiciary strikes back



So far, more than 100 federal court judges have ruled against the Trump administration in hundreds of lawsuits filed by states, unions, nonprofit organizations, and individuals.

While some of these rulings are fairly grounded in the Constitution, federal law, and precedent, many are expressions of primal rage from judges offended by the administration and moving at breakneck speed to stop it.

Trump sometimes exceeds his authority. Activist judges substitute ‘frequently’ for ‘sometimes.’ The Constitution and the Supreme Court disagree.

According to a Politico analysis, 87 of 114 federal judges who ruled against the administration were appointed by Democratic presidents, and 27 by Republicans. Most of the lawsuits were filed in just a few districts, with repeat activist judges leading the opposition.

Lawsuits against the administration may be filed in the District of Columbia and, often, also in other districts. Initially cases are randomly assigned. Plaintiffs focus on districts with predominantly activist, progressive judges. Because related cases are usually assigned to the same judge, later plaintiffs file in districts in which related cases were assigned to friendly activists.

Conservative judges generally believe they should interpret the law and avoid ruling on political questions, while liberals tend to see themselves as protectors of their values. After 60 years of domination by activist liberals, the Supreme Court and conservative appeals court judges are finally demanding that district court judges respect the Constitution. The Supreme Court is also re-evaluating precedents established by far-left justices who substituted their values for the words and intentions embodied in the Constitution.

To date, the Supreme Court has reversed or stayed about 30 lower court injunctions blocking the administration, and appeals courts have reversed or stayed another dozen. Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson imposed an administrative stay on a district court decision requiring the immediate resumption of SNAP payments.

Federal judges who oppose Trump’s agenda are openly opposing the Supreme Court. In April, D.C. Chief Federal Judge James Boasberg sought to hold administration officials in criminal contempt for violating an order the court had vacated. In May, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho criticized the court’s demand that district courts act promptly on administration requests. In a September ruling, Boston Federal Judge Allison Burroughs challenged the court for expecting lower courts to treat its emergency orders as binding legal precedent.

Ten of 12 federal judges interviewed by NBC News in September, and 47 of 65 federal judges responding to a New York Times survey in October, thought the court was mishandling its emergency docket. They described orders as “incredibly demoralizing and troubling” and “a slap in the face to the district courts.”

Deservedly so. Though the Supreme Court and appeals courts judges have rebuked district court judges for ignoring higher courts and abusing their authority, they continue to do so with rulings focused on identity politics and a progressive lens on the woes of immigrants, minorities, women, and workers. They likely expect to be reversed on appeal, but they secure wins by causing delay and creating fodder for progressive activists to rally their supporters.

There is little that can be done about these judges. Removal requires a majority vote in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate. With Democrats supporting these judges, those votes are unrealistic.

RELATED: Who checks the judges? No one — and that’s the problem.

Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Just a few of the dozens of examples of politicized judicial decisions:

In May, Myong Joun, a Biden appointee in Boston, enjoined layoffs at the Department of Education in a decision featuring an encomium to its anti-discrimination mission. The Supreme Court stayed his injunction.

Despite this precedent, Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee in San Francisco, issued a nationwide injunction barring the administration from firing union employees during or because of the government shutdown. Ignoring settled law, she bemoaned the “trauma” of workers who had been under “stress” ever since Trump’s election. Illston gambled correctly that the shutdown would end before her order could be reversed.

Indira Talwani, a federal district court judge in Boston, went further. Declaiming her fear that defunding Planned Parenthood would deprive women of access to abortions, she elided Article I of the Constitution, which requires all federal spending to be approved by Congress, nullifying a duly enacted statute that suspended funding of large abortion providers for a year. By the time she is reversed, the suspension will have expired.

In June, after San Francisco Federal Judge Charles Breyer enjoined Trump from federalizing the California National Guard, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously stayed his order, explaining that on military matters, the president’s judgment stands unless it is dishonest. Nonetheless, Oregon Federal Judge Karin Immergut subsequently blocked deployments in Portland, substituting her assessment of the situation for the president’s.

An Obama-appointed judge recently interviewed by NBC explained, “Trump derangement syndrome is a real issue. As a result, judges are mad at what Trump is doing or the manner he is going about things; they are sometimes forgetting to stay in their lane.”

Trump sometimes exceeds his authority. Activist judges, who self-reverentially believe progressive technocrats and judges are democracy’s guardians, substitute “frequently” for “sometimes.” The Constitution and the Supreme Court disagree.

Why pro-life Americans can’t trust the courts any more



Americans love to blame politicians — and often with good reason. But the real power in this country doesn’t rest with the people we elect. It rests with the ones we don’t. Unelected judges now govern America. They don’t interpret laws. They rewrite them.

Activist judges have become the unelected elite now running our country, handing down rulings that override the will of voters, defy elected legislatures, and erase laws they don’t like.

One state is trying to protect life; the other is trying to shield those who end it. And a single judge gets to pick which law counts.

They employ manipulative language to justify their overreach. If you don’t comply, blood is on your hands. Whether it’s the environment, vaccine mandates, border control, or abortion access, the refrain is always the same: Submit to the ruling, or people will die.

The irony couldn’t be more blatant.

In many cases involving abortion policy, it is in fact judges’ rulings that cost lives — lives of the unborn babies impacted by their rogue, dangerous decisions.

Take the recent case in Tennessee, where a federal judge blocked a law that protected minors from being trafficked across state lines for secret abortions. The law didn’t punish women. It didn’t outlaw abortion. It simply required parental involvement, something the majority of Americans support. But for activist judges, parental rights are optional if abortion is the end goal.

In New York, another judge defied federal authority and openly refused to cooperate with Texas law enforcement to hold a doctor accountable for illegally prescribing abortion pills. One state is trying to protect life; the other is trying to shield those who end it. And a single judge gets to pick which law counts.

Meanwhile, a federal judge overturned efforts to defund Planned Parenthood nationwide, even after Congress passed clear budget restrictions. The elected branches — chosen by the people — made a decision. But it didn’t matter. The judge didn’t like it, so the ruling class overruled the people and prioritized its holy grail: abortion.

Judicial activism has turned the courts into abortion war rooms. Judges now see themselves not as interpreters of law but as defenders of an ideology that elevates abortion above the democratic process. Their rulings don’t reflect any laws. They reflect a commitment to abortion at any cost.

It’s not just dangerous. It’s undemocratic.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court is beginning to push back. In a recent ruling, the court clarified that district judges cannot issue nationwide injunctions and block federal policies. It’s a necessary and overdue correction. But it’s only the beginning.

RELATED: Judicial activism strikes again in 14th Amendment decision

Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and gave power back to the people. In many states across the country, Americans responded by electing leaders and passing laws to protect the unborn. But today, activist judges are overriding those efforts, blocking pro-life laws and shielding abortionists from accountability.

We need judges who apply the law, not rewrite it. Until that happens, every unborn child, every woman in danger of being exploited by the abortion industry, and every citizen fighting for life will remain at the mercy of unelected rulers.

The Dobbs decision was only the beginning. Now we must press forward to ensure that the will of the people is honored and the most vulnerable among us are finally protected.

Americans didn’t elect a Boston judge president



How much longer will Congress and the executive branch keep bowing to rogue judges?

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston ordered the federal government to continue reimbursing Planned Parenthood under Medicaid. She warned that cutting funding could cause women to “suffer adverse health consequences,” face more unintended pregnancies, and go without treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

The federal judiciary was never intended to wield this kind of unchecked power.

Congress had already voted to end the funding. The law is on the books. It went through the full legislative process and was signed by the president. But Judge Talwani believes her opinion overrides all of that. She not only reinterpreted the law, she ordered the appropriation of funds to a private abortion business.

That crosses a major constitutional line.

Judges don’t have the power of the purse. They can’t spend money. They can’t fund private organizations. Only Congress can do that. Yet that core principle of the separation of powers now seems optional. We are left with a system where unelected judges act as legislators, executives, and arbiters — and no one challenges them.

Too many conservatives hesitate to confront this reality. They’ll cheer when Trump ignores Congress on TikTok but wring their hands when he considers defying an unlawful court ruling. But judicial opinions don’t carry binding force simply because a judge wrote them. Presidents and lawmakers swear the same oath to the Constitution as judges do. They don’t swear loyalty to the judiciary.

If a court orders the government to fund Planned Parenthood in direct defiance of a law passed by Congress, and the executive branch complies, then we no longer have a functioning constitutional system. We have a judiciary with a veto power over the other branches.

This didn’t start with Talwani’s ruling, and it won’t end here. Judges now routinely issue sweeping decisions that affect the entire country, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that supposedly reined in nationwide injunctions. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito warned that lower courts would continue to defy precedent unless checked. They were right.

The time for deference is over. If Trump continues to honor every lawless edict from every federal judge, he only encourages more of the same. He entrenches the notion that judges make law and everyone else must obey.

RELATED: Democrats created this court monster — now it’s eating them

Prasong Maulae via iStock/Getty Images

Imagine Congress passes and Trump signs a reconciliation bill that strips federal courts of jurisdiction over immigration enforcement or Planned Parenthood funding. Under Judge Talwani’s logic, the courts could simply declare the law unconstitutional and order the executive branch to act against it — up to and including spending money Congress never appropriated. That’s not judicial review. That’s a judge acting like a one-woman super-legislature with a gavel and a god complex. Where does it end?

It never ends. Earlier this month, a judge in California ruled that ICE cannot carry out “roving” immigration enforcement in parts of the state’s Central Valley. The ruling lacked any constitutional basis. The judge simply decided too many illegal immigrants were being arrested and declared the enforcement itself a violation of rights — despite no evidence that a single American citizen had been wrongfully detained.

Rather than overturn the decision, the Ninth Circuit grilled government attorneys about whether ICE had an arrest quota. The implication was clear: Immigration enforcement itself is now suspect.

The federal judiciary was never intended to wield this kind of unchecked power. Congress holds the purse strings. The executive enforces the law. Judges interpret the law in individual cases. That’s the constitutional design.

Abraham Lincoln, in his fifth debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858, warned against treating court opinions as absolute. If citizens and lawmakers accept every ruling without question, Lincoln said, they prepare themselves to accept the next decision “without any inquiry.”

That mindset leads to tyranny. Not suddenly, but step by step.

The judiciary was supposed to be the weakest branch. It was designed that way. It has no army. It has no budget. Its legitimacy depends on its restraint. When judges cast that aside, the other branches must respond.

Otherwise, we will find ourselves governed not by the Constitution but by the whims of unelected lawyers with lifetime tenure.

If Trump does not confront the courts, we will be obliged to implement any rule from any judge who shares the same beliefs as Ilhan Omar or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I’d hate to see what the next decision looks like.

Democrats created this court monster — now it’s eating them



The Supreme Court’s recent ruling greenlighting mass layoffs at the Department of Education sends a clear message: The courts no longer belong to the Democrats.

For decades, Democrats relied on judges to impose policies they couldn’t pass through Congress. But that strategy has collapsed. With a conservative majority now on the bench, the judicial workaround has given way to constitutional limits — and the left is losing.

Every time Democrats sue to block Trump’s orders, they hand him another opportunity — and this court is more than ready to lock in conservative victories for a generation.

In the final week of its 2024-2025 term, the high court:

  • Curbed federal courts’ ability to issue sweeping nationwide injunctions.
  • Affirmed the right of parents to opt their children out of school lessons that violate their religious beliefs.
  • Allowed South Carolina to deny Planned Parenthood Medicaid funding for non-abortion services.
  • Approved mass layoffs across the government — at least temporarily.

In high-stakes emergency cases, Trump keeps winning — notching victories in nearly all 18 Supreme Court petitions. That includes greenlights to deport migrants to third countries and enforce the transgender military ban.

Short-term gains, long-term pains

Democrats thought they could run out the clock with courtroom delay tactics. Instead, they handed Trump a fast pass to the one branch he dominates.

Only one branch of government speaks with a single, constitutionally defined voice — the executive. And right now, that voice belongs to the president, no matter how loudly the deep state screams.

Unlike the executive, Congress isn’t built for speed. It’s a fractured, slow-moving body by design — hundreds of voices split by region, party, and ego. The judiciary can splinter, too, with power scattered across lower courts nationwide.

But the Supreme Court? That’s a different story.

With a 6-3 conservative majority, Trump holds a 2-to-1 advantage. Imagine if Republicans had that kind of dominance in Congress.

Trump wouldn’t be scraping by with a razor-thin 220-212 majority in the House. His agenda would cruise through. In the Senate, forget the 60-vote filibuster firewall — Trump’s bills would pass outright.

Reconciliation wouldn’t be a high-wire act. It would be routine. No more watching the Senate parliamentarian gut key provisions from his One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Granted, the Supreme Court can’t launch policy offensives like Congress or the White House. It waits for cases to land.

But thanks to Democrats, those cases keep coming. Every time they sue to block Trump’s executive orders, they hand him another opportunity — and this court is more than ready to lock in conservative victories for a generation.

Dems’ Achilles’ heel

For decades, Democrats treated the courts as a shortcut to power. When they couldn’t pass laws, they let judges do the work. Roe v. Wade was the crown jewel — a sweeping federal abortion mandate they never could have gotten through Congress. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg admitted the legal reasoning was flimsy.

They used the same playbook to expand the welfare state and rewrite social policy from the bench. Judicial activism became the norm, and both sides played the game. But Democrats played it harder — and now the rules are turning against them.

What once looked like a string of permanent victories has turned into a pipeline of defeats. Every lawsuit they file hands Trump’s Supreme Court another shot at affirming his agenda. Even when he technically loses, the rulings often leave behind a roadmap showing exactly how to win the next round.

RELATED: Supreme Court grants massive victory to Trump administration on cutting down Department of Education

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Democrats’ Supreme Court problem could get a lot worse. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s oldest liberal at 71, has Type 1 diabetes and a history of health problems. If she steps down during Trump’s term, he could lock in a 7-2 conservative majority.

And if either Clarence Thomas, 77, or Samuel Alito, 75, decides to retire, Trump could replace them with younger conservatives — extending the court’s rightward tilt for decades.

Securing a conservative legacy

Trump has every incentive to issue bold executive orders. Each lawsuit the left files creates another opening for the Court to back him — and turn temporary wins into permanent precedent.

By chasing headlines and placating the base with short-term court fights, Democrats are handing Trump the long game. Their decades of judicial overreach have backfired. The courts they once controlled now serve as Trump’s most powerful weapon.

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.