U.S. district judges have been entering injunctions against various policies, prompting pushback from the White House and the president.
The White House on March 19 urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take action with regard to judges that have been blocking actions by President Donald Trump and his administration.
“It’s incumbent upon the Supreme Court to rein in these activist judges,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a briefing in Washington. “These partisan activists are undermining the judicial branch by doing so.”
Leavitt singled out U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who recently blocked the president from deporting noncitizens who are allegedly part of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Trump has repeatedly criticized judges who have entered injunctions and restraining orders against his agenda. This week, he accused Boasberg of wanting to “assume the role of president” and said that Boasberg and other judges should be impeached.
That appeared to prompt a response from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said in a rare statement that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Litigants should instead utilize the appellate process, or appeal decisions and wait for higher courts to act, Roberts said.
“The president has made it clear that he believes this judge in this case should be impeached and he has also made it clear that he has great respect for the Chief Justice John Roberts,” Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday.
The judges in the cases are “acting as partisan activists from the bench,” she said. “They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow-walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable.”
The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment.
Boasberg over the weekend ordered the Trump administration not to deport any suspected Tren de Aragua gang members unless they were otherwise subject to removal.
One plane carrying illegal immigrants took off after the order, U.S. officials later said, but those people had gone through immigration court and been ordered removed by judges.
Two other planes had already exited U.S. airspace before the order was handed down, Robert Cerna, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, told Boasberg.
