The Trump administration’s top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security isn’t backing down.
James Percival, DHS general counsel, went public on X last week with a thread he called “Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition,” naming specific federal district judges in Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California. His argument: those judges are deliberately sabotaging ICE enforcement operations and putting agents in danger.
The media did not take it well.
A reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times contacted DHS to ask whether publicly criticizing judges online might “risk additional threats” given, as the reporter put it, “ongoing threats to federal judges.” Percival posted that question on X Wednesday and let the public draw its own conclusions. “Witness the absolute absurdity of the liberal media response to my new series,” he wrote.
He also made a point that the coverage seems to miss: the same media that’s clutching its pearls over a government official calling out activist rulings had no such concern when conservative justices were on the receiving end. Brett Kavanaugh was the target of an actual assassination attempt in 2022. Amy Coney Barrett told Congress she’s had to wear a bulletproof vest. No hand-wringing from those same reporters then.
Percival named two judges specifically. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the Northern District of Illinois, a Clinton appointee, issued a nationwide pause on ending temporary protected status for Burmese migrants, according to Percival. This came, Percival noted, after the Supreme Court backed the administration’s position on TPS four separate times, and after the Seventh Circuit had just reversed Kennelly on the identical issue days earlier. “This is judicial sabotage,” Percival wrote.
He also went after Judge Hernan Vera, a Biden appointee in California’s Central District, over an order Percival said amounted to micromanaging how DHS officers handle violent anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles. The judge described the agitators as “protesters” and the DHS response as “violent.” Percival described it differently. “Agitators in Los Angeles have assaulted DHS employees, thrown objects at them, engaged in arson, and even tried to breech a federal facility,” he wrote. “Judicial micromanagement of use of force in these contexts puts our officers at risk.”
The Northern Illinois court declined to engage on the specifics. A court spokesperson said judges are barred from commenting on pending cases under the Code of Conduct, and that anyone unhappy with a ruling should take it through the appellate process.
The broader fight over district court power is moving in the Senate. Republicans have introduced the Boasberg Act, which would prevent individual district judges from issuing sweeping nationwide injunctions blocking executive branch policy.
