NYCLA Rule of Law Task Force Applauds Dismissal of DOJ Maryland Suit

In May 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued a standing order that bars the immediate deportation of a detained alien who has challenged their deportation with a habeas corpus petition. The Order requires that the detainee be kept in place at least until 4:00 p.m. on the second business day after the habeas filing.

The U.S. Department of Justice challenged the Order, not by asking the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to abrogate it or by taking an appeal from its application in a particular habeas proceeding, but by suing the Maryland District Court, and all of that court’s 15 judges and Clerk. Because all of the judges on that court were named as defendants, the DOJ’s lawsuit was assigned to a Judge from the Western District of Virginia.

This week, the court dismissed the DOJ’s complaint. The Rule of Law Task Force of the New York County Lawyers Association applaud that dismissal.

In dismissing the DOJ’s complaint, the court applied two fundamental rule-of-law principles. First, the Executive is not the sole sovereign of the United States; instead, sovereignty is shared among three co-equal branches of government. Any disputes

between the branches must be resolved within the constitutional structure and with due respect for the Judiciary’s co-equal standing with the Executive. Second, our Constitution does not give the federal judiciary a plenary power, unmoored from a justiciable case or controversy, to review allegations of constitutional misconduct. No law authorizes one branch of the government to sue another one, and thus the court found that the matter is not justiciable.

Even though the court did not address the merits of the Maryland District Court’s Order, we note that the Order promotes due process rights guaranteed by our Constitution. Other courts have similar standing orders. In fact, the Fourth Circuit (which includes the Maryland District Court) bars deportations of a detained alien for 14 days following their filing of petitions for review of final orders of removal issued by the Board of Immigration Appeals. This year, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle that detained aliens are entitled to due process. The Maryland District Court’s Order imposes barely a two-day delay on the Government’s ability to deport those aliens. Thus, the Order reflects the common-sense judgment, which was well stated in the concurring opinion of Justice Barrett in U.S. v. Texas, 144 S. Ct. 797, at 798-99 (2024), that “the relative consequences . . . of erroneously” removing a detained alien are far “worse than those of erroneously” staying that removal for a brief time to ensure that a court can at least preliminarily consider the matter before it is too late. In this way, the Order advances the governing principle of our Supreme Court, “equal justice under law,” by giving courts a modest amount of time to consider their authority to grant the detainee the requested relief.

About the New York County Lawyers Association
The New York County Lawyers Association (www.nycla.org) was founded in 1908 as one of the first major bar associations in the country that admitted members without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Since its inception, it has pioneered some of the most far-reaching and tangible reforms in American jurisprudence and has continuously played an active role in legal developments and public policy.

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