OPINION:
The federal district court judges are at it again.
This week, a federal judge ruled that ICE’s current policies governing immigration arrests at courthouses were unlawful. Another ruling blocked the Trump administration from using the SAVE system to clear illegal aliens from voter rolls. Yet another ruled that food stamp benefits must continue to cover junk food, such as candy and soda, despite Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” push to limit consumption of ultra-processed foods.
During President Trump’s second term, judges have blocked 169 of his policies (and counting). Compare that with six during President George W. Bush’s administration, 12 during President Obama’s administration, 75 during Mr. Trump’s first administration and 21 during President Biden’s administration.
These judges are political activists hiding behind robes, using their positions on the bench to nullify the will of voters.
Judge Sparkle Sooknanan (yes, you read that correctly) was appointed by Mr. Biden to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She immigrated to the U.S. from Trinidad and Tobago around 1998 and holds dual citizenship. She and she alone now determines how our voting system operates.
Judge Sooknanan ruled this week that the Trump administration could not use the overhauled SAVE system to store or verify voter citizenship information. She ordered the Homeland Security Department to stop allowing states to search the federal data system that also includes Social Security records.
Judge Sooknanan was concerned that states using the data system may purge eligible voters from their rolls, thereby impacting the November midterm elections. This “concern” has not been verified in practice.
Let there be no doubt of Judge Sooknanan’s leftist politics. In her private practice as a lawyer, Judge Sooknanan logged more than 3,000 hours of pro bono work helping illegal aliens obtain asylum and preventing deportations at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Among her notable rulings, she halted the deportation of unaccompanied minors and blocked the IRS from sharing illegal immigrants’ tax data with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Rep. Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican, has introduced a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment in response to Judge Sooknanan’s ruling. The amendment would bar any individual holding citizenship, nationality or allegiance to a foreign country from serving in Congress, on the federal bench or in any Senate-confirmed role unless they formally and permanently renounce their foreign ties.
“If you want to represent the American people, judge the American people or lead the American people, your loyalty belongs to the American people. Not a foreign government. Not any other country,” Ms. Mace said. “The people making our laws and leading our government cannot have one foot in America and one foot somewhere else. It is a threat to our national security and an insult to every American citizen. This amendment is simple: one country, one allegiance, or you do not serve.”
The idea may seem like common sense, but the resolution stands little chance of passing.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson is another partisan hack posing as a neutral arbitrator of the law. She was appointed to the bench by Mr. Obama and ruled that food stamp benefits must continue to cover junk food, despite multiple states seeking to ban the purchase of soda and candy.
Judge Jackson has twice been overruled by higher courts — first when she attempted to block the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and again when she attempted to block the administration from firing the head of the Office of Special Counsel, a position that resides within the executive branch.
It is also worth noting that Judge Jackson sentenced Trump ally Roger Stone to 40 months in prison for not cooperating with the Mueller investigation, a sentence Mr. Trump later commuted.
It seems that a judge who is continually overruled by higher courts should be impeached by Congress for partisan decisions, but, alas, there seems to be no appetite on Capitol Hill for that either.
Finally, Judge P. Casey Pitts, an appointee of Mr. Biden to the Northern District of California, ruled that ICE’s current policies governing civil immigration arrests at courthouses were unlawful. The Department of Homeland Security called the decision “naked judicial activism.”
The safest, most efficient method by which ICE can conduct its duties is now off-limits because of a district judge’s determination that those arrests, which are used to enforce federal immigration laws, are “arbitrary and capricious.”
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. CASA that federal district courts may not issue nationwide injunctions blocking presidential actions and executive orders. Still, the action remains very much in practice.
If not overturned by higher courts, all three decisions this week by three different district court judges will likely make their way to the Supreme Court, and the rulings will be struck down.
Still, the decisions slow the Trump administration’s ability to implement the agenda Americans voted for, and they represent an affront to the rule of law.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at the Washington Times.
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