Appeals Court Questions Justice Department Lawsuit Against Every Maryland Federal Judge

A three judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals pressed the Justice Department hard on Friday over the Trump administration's lawsuit against every federal judge in Maryland, a case it wants revived to challenge a court order slowing deportations.

Justice Department attorney Sarah Welch told the panel in Richmond, Virginia, that a lower court judge improperly threw out the lawsuit. "The injury is that the standing order, the local rule, enjoins the federal government from executing immigration enforcement," Welch said, according to Reuters.

The judges did not sound persuaded. "This is against an entire court," US Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker told Welch. "This is the executive branch versus the judicial branch. I don't see a limiting principle to your position." Thacker, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, pressed Welch to identify a single case like this one. When Welch began citing cases she described as analogous, Thacker cut in: "So, no," Bloomberg Law reported.

A two day pause at the center of the fight

The dispute began in May 2025, when the US District Court for the District of Maryland adopted a standing order that automatically blocks the removal of migrants in Maryland for two business days after they file new lawsuits challenging their detention. The order, signed by Chief US District Judge George Russell, cited a "recent influx of habeas petitions concerning alien detainees purportedly subject to improper and imminent removal from the United States."

Rather than challenge the order inside a single immigration case, the Justice Department filed suit in June 2025 against every federal judge in Maryland. The department argued that the policy was unlawful and interfered with the executive branch's authority over immigration enforcement.

Because every Maryland judge was a defendant, the case went to US District Judge Thomas Cullen, a Trump appointee based in the Western District of Virginia. Cullen dismissed the case on August 26, 2025. The administration appealed, and that appeal is what the 4th Circuit heard on Friday, as the case of United States v. Russell, No. 25-2004.

Debs, property and a skeptical bench

Much of Friday's argument turned on In re Debs, an 1895 Supreme Court decision the administration says allows it to seek an injunction to protect federal interests. Several judges questioned whether the government was stretching that ruling too far.

US Circuit Judge Marvin Quattlebaum, a Trump appointee and the only Republican appointee on Friday's panel, pushed back on the idea that novelty alone doomed the suit, saying "just because it's unprecedented doesn't mean it's wrong." But he also told Welch that many of the historical cases brought under the Debs ruling involved private companies or individuals and were traditionally tied to property interests, not to a court order.

Paul Clement, retained to represent the Maryland judges, urged the panel to uphold the dismissal and to send a message that would prevent a future case like this one from being filed. "The executive's extraordinary effort here to sue an entire judicial district in the name of the United States is a grave threat to the separation of powers that suffered multiple threshold defects," Clement said.

No decision was announced on Friday. If the panel revives the lawsuit, the fight over the Maryland standing order returns to the lower court. If it affirms the dismissal, the two business day pause stays in place, and the administration's objections would have to be raised inside individual detention cases instead.