The Affliction Of The Arrogance Of Judicial Supremacy Does Not Care About The President Who Appointed The Judge

When 99% of your decisions are final because they never get appealed, the mindset that can develop looks past the question of whether you should be making the decision at all.

Don’t misconstrue my use of the term “arrogance” — it is not necessarily a hubristic exercise. I use it instead as a form of the word term “arrogate,” defined as to take or claim something without justification. “Arrogate” is a verb describing an action, where “arrogance” is a noun describing an attitude. But both apply to a district judge who knowingly and willfully takes on the responsibility for making a decision that the Constitution vests in another.

On May 1, 2025, District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., a Trump appointee in the Southern District of Texas, arrogated to himself the authority to make a decision disagreeing with President Trump’s issuance of a Proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act. That invocation established a legal framework for the removal from the United States of specified “alien enemies” —declared by the President as Venezuelan citizens over the age of 14 who are members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) criminal gang allowed into the United States by the Biden Administration.

Judge Rodriguez’s Injunction does not concern a lack of due process or what the Government is required to prove to an immigration judge about the person sought to be removed. He first defined some of the key words and phrases in the AEA, and then determined that the very invocation of the AEA by President Trump is “ultra vires” — beyond the President’s authority based on the justifications set forth in the Proclamation by the President.