Justice Department Sues All 15 Federal Judges in Maryland Over a Deportation Pause Order

On June 24, 2025, the Justice Department filed suit against the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and all 15 of its federal judges, including Chief Judge George L. Russell III, seeking to overturn a standing order that automatically pauses the removal of detained immigrants who file habeas corpus petitions. Russell signed the order on May 21 and a revised version on May 28; it holds removals until 4 p.m. on the second business day after a petition is filed, so a judge can consider it. The complaint called the order unlawful judicial overreach into executive enforcement authority. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the President's executive authority had been undermined 'by an endless barrage of injunctions.' The department also moved for the defendant judges to recuse.

Suing an entire federal bench, rather than appealing its orders, inverts the ordinary relationship between the executive branch and the courts and puts a district's judges in the position of adverse parties in litigation the executive brings before them.

On August 26, 2025, U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, a Trump appointee sitting by designation, dismissed the suit, holding the judges had judicial immunity and that the dispute between co-equal branches was nonjusticiable.