Over the past week, two federal judges have issued rulings on immigration cases that aren’t just legally significant—they’re genuinely extraordinary documents. One includes a photo of a five-year-old in a Spiderman backpack, biblical citations, and closes with Ben Franklin’s warning about keeping the republic. The other spends 83 pages methodically dismantling a cabinet secretary’s decision, includes screenshots of her social media posts, and concludes that she “pounds X (f/k/a Twitter)” instead of following the law. Both judges reached back to the Founders to make their points. Both dropped any pretense of the typical judicial deference afforded to the executive branch. And both made crystal clear that they see what’s happening for exactly what it is.
Let’s start with the shorter one. Judge Fred Biery in the Western District of Texas issued a brief but devastating opinion granting habeas corpus to Adrian Conejo Arias and his five-year-old son, Liam—the child whose photo went viral wearing a blue hat with ears and a Spiderman backpack when he was kidnapped by federal agents in Minnesota and shipped to a detention center in Texas. Judge Biery didn’t mince words:
The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children. This Court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported but do so by proper legal procedures.
He then offered what he called a “civics lesson to the government,” including reminding them of some key parts that were in the Declaration we signed 250 years ago to be free from a monarch:
Apparent also is the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three-year-old ThomasJefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation. Among others were:
- “He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People.”
- “He has excited domestic Insurrection among us.”
- “For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us.”
- “He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislatures.”
“We the people” are hearing echos of that history.
And then there is that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and persons or things to be seized.
U.S. CONST. amend. IV.
And the startling conclusion to the civics lesson the US federal government got from a judge.
Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.
And in case anyone missed the point, Biery closed with a reference you don’t often see in federal court opinions: “Philadelphia, September 17, 1787: ‘Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?’ ‘A republic, if you can keep it.'” Followed by: “With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike, It is so ORDERED.”
The ruling includes the photo of the five-year-old child, and two biblical citations. The first to “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'” and the second to… “Jesus wept.”
If Judge Biery’s ruling was a shot across the bow—short, sharp, impossible to miss—then Judge Ana Reyes’s 83-page ruling in the Haitian TPS (Temporary Protected Status) case is a full broadside. Where Biery reached for the Declaration and the Bible, Reyes brings receipts—83 pages of them—that lay bare just how far federal judges have moved from customary deference to open incredulity.
The ruling opens with a letter from George Washington in 1783 declaring that “America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions.”
Then it gets to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s position on immigration:
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem has a different take.
The ruling then includes a screenshot of Noem’s X post declaring “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE. THEY ARE ALL KILLERS, LEECHES, AND ENTITLEMENT JUNKIES. WE DONT WANT THEM HERE.”
Judge Reyes notes dryly: “So says the official responsible for overseeing the TPS program.”
The plaintiffs in the case are five Haitian TPS holders whom Judge Reyes takes pains to introduce:
They are not, it emerges, killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies. They are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department; Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse.
The ruling systematically dismantles every single aspect of Secretary Noem’s decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation. But the section on DHS’s supposed “consultation with appropriate agencies” is particularly brutal.
The TPS statute requires the Secretary to consult with appropriate agencies before making a termination decision. Here’s what that “consultation” actually looked like:
On Friday, September 5, 2025—that is, the same day that the NTPSA court set aside the Partial Vacatur of Haiti’s TPS designation—a DHS staffer emailed a State staffer at 4:55 p.m.: “Due to the litigation, we are re-reviewing country conditions in Haiti based on the original TPS deadline. Can you advise on State’s views on the matter?” The State staffer responded within 53 minutes: “State believes that there would be no foreign policy concerns with respect to a change in the TPS statue of Haiti.”
This was it. The full extent of the supposed consultation with appropriate agencies.
The judge notes that she believe she “must be missing something” and included a bit of the transcript from the hearing:
Court: So in the Federal Register notice, the Secretary wrote, “After reviewing country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. Government agencies, the Secretary determined that Haiti no longer meets the conditions for the designating as TPS”; right?
Government Counsel: Yes.
Court: What were the appropriate agencies that the Secretary consulted? . . .
Government Counsel: So, Your Honor, it’s the Department of State email found at 409 and 410. That is what we have. . . .
Court: No other agency was consulted?
Government Counsel: No other agency was consulted. . . .
Court: And the extent of the Department of State consultation was the email exchange at 409 and 410.
Government Counsel: That is my understanding
The judge’s response to this 53-minute email exchange being presented as statutory “consultation” is unsparing:
Congress did not vest the Secretary with Humpty Dumpty-like power to make the word “consultation” mean “just what [she] chooses it to mean—neither more nor less.”
It gets worse. The court notes that the State Department’s own Travel Advisory for Haiti—the document that literally says “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason”—was updated after Noem’s first termination attempt. The updated version, warning of worsened conditions, doesn’t even appear in the administrative record. The Secretary responsible for making this determination simply didn’t look at her own government’s assessment of the country’s safety.
Then there’s the pattern. As of this ruling, Secretary Noem has terminated TPS designations for every single country that has come up for review since taking office. Twelve countries. Twelve terminations. The ruling includes a handy chart:
Twelve for twelve. Judge Reyes notes this is “unprecedented in the thirty-five years since the establishment of the TPS program for a DHS Secretary to terminate every TPS designation that crosses her desk for review.”
The ruling then gets into the substance of Noem’s reasoning—or lack thereof. The Secretary claims there are parts of Haiti “suitable to return to” but never identifies a single safe location. Indeed, the Court gave the government a chance to explain exactly where these “parts” of Haiti that were safe were, and was not impressed by the answer:
According to Secretary Noem, “data surrounding internal relocation does indicate parts of the country are suitable to return to.” But the Secretary cited no data to support this proposition and failed to identify a single safe location. In response to an inquiry from the Court, the Government cited an October 29, 2025, USCIS memo in the administrative record as the supporting analysis. “The memo,” it noted, “reflects that individuals have been internally displaced, thereby indicating that Haitian residents found certain areas in Haiti that could be suitable for return.” But the memo also fails to identify a single safe location by name or even geographic area. And the fact that, as the memo notes, 1.3 million Haitians—around twelve percent of the population—have been “internally displaced due to escalating violence” says nothing about whether they escaped to suitable areas. If anything, those areas are presumptively now less suitable for return, having been inundated with internal refugees.
Meanwhile, the administrative record is full of statements like these:
“Haiti’s crisis has reached catastrophic levels” — Human Rights Watch, January 2025
“The violence has increased dramatically in 2024” — Doctors Without Borders, January 2025
“Haiti is paralyzed” — Crisis Group, February 2025
“Top United Nations Officials Urge Swift Global Action as Haiti Nears Collapse” — UN Security Council, July 2025
“The people of Haiti are in a perfect storm of suffering” — UN Secretary-General Guterres, August 2025
Against all of this, Secretary Noem concluded that “there are no extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti that prevent Haitian TPS holders from returning [to] safety.” Judge Reyes is incredulous that the Secretary’s analysis relies on “emerging signals of hope” rather than actual changed conditions:
Unable to identify present conditions supporting her conclusion, Secretary Noem turns instead to speculation about future improvement. Each source she cited speaks to how Haiti might improve in the future. She quoted a UN article referencing Secretary-General António Guterres’s statement that despite ongoing violence in Haiti, “‘there are emerging signals of hope.’’’ He cautioned that “these fragile gains” depend on “more decisive international support.” Emerging signals of hope, of course, are not actual change. Secretary-General Guterres’s full remarks to the UNSC underscore this point. They do not describe a nation on the brink of recovery. Rather, they describe a nation in crisis, whose future hinges on internal “unity” and “resolve from [the UNSC].”
The ruling also destroys the government’s “national interest” analysis, which focuses on immigrants attempting to enter the US illegally and those who overstay visas. The problem? TPS holders are already here. Legally:
Secretary Noem’s analysis also focused on those who “overstay their visas” and so remain in the country unlawfully. Id. She claimed that these overstayers “may be harder to locate and monitor,” increasing vulnerabilities in immigration enforcement systems. See id. She also said they “place an added strain on local communities by increasing demand for public resources, contributing to housing and healthcare pressures, and competing in an already limited job market.” Id. But Haitian TPS holders are not in this cohort either. They are in the U.S. lawfully. See Jan. 6 P.M. Hr’g Tr. at 85:15–87:12. Indeed, TPS holders are easy to locate because they regularly update their address information with DHS to maintain that status and their work authorization. See id. at 94:25–95:6. And Secretary Noem provides no data to support the overgeneralization that those who overstay their visas are a strain on their local communities. See Dkt. 122. They may well cause a strain, but terminating Haiti’s TPS termination not alleviate it because, again, Haitian TPS holders do not fall into this cohort.
Regarding that confusion of TPS visitors being here legally, meaning they literally cannot overstay their visas, the judge notes in a footnote how absurd part of the government’s argument is:
With respect, this borders on the absurd. The latter has zero relation to the former or reality.
When asked where in the record the Court could find data on TPS holders represented in “overstay” rates (based on those who maybe overstayed visas prior to getting TPS status), the government comes up empty. See if you sense where the judge loses patience:
The Government responds by speculating that maybe some Haitians overstayed their visas before obtaining TPS status. Maybe. Who knows? Not Secretary Noem. The Court asked the Government: “[w]here in the [CAR] can the Court find the percentage of TPS holders represented in the overstay rates?” The response: “The [CAR] does not contain data that is this finely dissected.” Which is to say, not enough people to even bother counting.
The equal protection analysis is where things get really pointed. Judge Reyes catalogs President Trump’s statements about Haitians and other nonwhite immigrants:
President Trump has made—freely, at times even boastfully—several derogatory statements about Haitians and other nonwhite foreigners. To start, he has repeatedly invoked racist tropes of national purity, declaring that “illegal immigrants”—a category he wrongly assigns to Haitian TPS holders—are “poisoning the blood” of America. He has, Plaintiffs allege, complained that recently admitted nonwhite Africans would “never ‘go back to their huts’ in Africa.” He has complained further that nonwhite immigration is an “invasion,” creating a “dumping ground” that is “destroying our country.” He has described immigrants as “not people,” “snakes,” and “garbage,” who have “bad genes.” He has also stated that he prefers immigrants from “nice”—predominantly white—countries like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark over immigrants from “shithole countries”
President Trump has referred to Haiti as a “shithole country,” suggested Haitians “probably have AIDS,” and complained that Haitian immigration is “like a death wish for our country.” He has also promoted the false conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants were “eating the pets of the people” in Springfield, Ohio. Even after that (ridiculous) claim was debunked, he claimed they were eating “other things too that they’re not supposed to be.” About two weeks after the Termination, he again described Haiti as a “filthy, dirty, [and] disgusting” “shithole country.” He stated: “I have also announced a permanent pause on Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.” Then continued, “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why cannot we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few, let us have a few, from Denmark.” It is not a coincidence that Haiti’s population is ninety-five percent black while Norway’s is over ninety percent white.
The ruling notes that Trump’s statements came close in time to Noem’s decisions, and that Noem herself has made her own views clear, as noted in the screenshot, calling Haitians “leeches, entitlement junkies, and foreign invaders” just three days after making the Termination decision.
And then we get to the conclusion. It’s worth quoting at length because you really don’t see this kind of language from the bench:
There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table. Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side—or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side—or at least has ignored it. Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X (f/k/a Twitter).
And then the kicker:
Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the APA to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.
These rulings represent something we’ve been watching develop for months now: federal judges completely abandoning the traditional deference typically afforded to government positions, because the government has made clear it doesn’t deserve it. The DOJ’s credibility has been in freefall, and judges are no longer pretending otherwise. They’re reaching back to Franklin and Washington as genuine warnings about what happens when executive power operates unchecked by law or facts.
Some people will dismiss this as “activist judges.” But what we’re seeing is something different: judges trying to do their actual jobs—reviewing whether the government followed the law—and finding that the government isn’t even pretending to follow it anymore.
The administration is ignoring statutory requirements entirely, fabricating rationales after the fact, and treating judicial review as an inconvenience to be steamrolled rather than a constitutional check to be respected. We’re not talking about simple judicial disagreements of interpretation of the law. These opinions read more like desperate signals from the bench that something has gone very, very wrong.
I’ve seen some complaints—in particular about the first short ruling—that it doesn’t read in a very judicial manner. The lack of citations is a bit startling, and probably bodes ill if the government appeals. But that’s almost the point. When a judge includes a photo of a child in a Spiderman backpack, cites “Jesus wept,” and closes with Ben Franklin’s warning about keeping the republic—or when another judge spends 83 pages documenting that the Secretary of DHS ignored her own agencies, ignored the evidence, ignored the law, and instead “pounds X”—they’re writing for more than an appeals court. They’re writing for history. They’re writing for the public. They’re sick of the lies and the gaslighting, and the simple fascism of it all in a supposed constitutional democracy. And they want to make damn sure that someone, somewhere, is paying attention.
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Last month, we reported on an expanded class-action lawsuit in which several authors accused NVIDIA of using millions of pirated books to train its AI models.
