The US District Court for the District of Columbia, where many of the cases interfering with the Trump administrations' authority have been presented, has 15 judges, five of them were born outside of the US. Country of origin isn't a factor in most jobs, but it does beg the question if judges with ties to foreign nations and cultures are the best choices for making decisions affecting the US military, immigration or foreign policy. One cannot say it's completely irrelevant, since the authors of the constitution itself stated that one must be a US born citizen to qualify for the position of US president. Until Donald Trump became president, decisions regarding national security and foreign policy were the exclusive domain of the president. The liberal resistance has taken it upon themselves to undermine the presidents' executive authority in the only way they know how, weaponization of the judicial system. And we thought that ended with Alvin Bragg... They have filed a chain of lawsuits suing the administration and have 'chosen' courts in known liberal districts in which to file. The district court of DC is Lalaland for these suits.
Surprisingly, the DC district does not have a history of foreign-born judges. It includes 10 senior judges who still occasionally hear cases in the district. This group of 10 judges date as far back as the Reagan administration in the 1980's, all were born in the US. Starting in 2014, Barry Obama appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan who was born in Jamaica. She attended law school at George Washington University. Before her appointment to the federal court, she had no experience as a judge. None. She is currently overseeing the legal challenge to DOGE's work to cut excess government spending. Obama also appointed Judge Amit P. Mehta to the DC court. Mehta also had no experience as a judge. None. Mehta was born in India, his parents immigrated to America when he was one year old. Mehta will oversee four civil cases related to events from January 6 that purport to blame Trump for injuries, which will undoubtedly detract from presidential duties, or at least attempt to do so.
The other three foreign born judges were nominated by Joe Biden, aka Brandon. Judge Ana Cecelia Reyes was nominated in 2021, who also had no prior experience as a judge. None. She was born in Uruguay, lived in Spain and later immigrated to Kentucky where she grew up. Shew is the first openly LGBTQ Latina to be appointed to this court. Reyes presided over the case objecting to Trumps' executive order declaring 'gender dysphoria' as a disqualifier for troop readiness. The first Muslim Arab American in the DC district court is Judge Amir Hatem Mahdy Ali. He was born and raised in Canada to Egyptian parents. Ali only became an American citizen in 2019. Ali obtained a degree in software engineering in Canada then graduated from Harvard Law school in 2011. He worked as a volunteer in the Biden presidential campaign and various nonprofits. He had no experience as a judge (or any other legal experience...) prior to being appointed by Biden. None. Ali, with no supervision, oversight or collaboration restored $2 billion in USAID spending to foreign nonprofit contractors that had been paused by the Trump administration for 90 days.
The newest judge on the DC district court is Judge Sparkle Sooknanan. She was sworn in on January 2, 2025. Born in Trinidad-Tobago in 1983, she attended college and law school in Brooklyn NY, graduating in 2010. She clerked for Justice Sotomayor and was deputy assistant attorney in the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ. Biden appointed her as district judge in the DC district. She had no experience as a judge, ever. None.
None of the cases impeding the Trump administrations' agenda have gone in front of conservative judges in conservative states. They have all landed in the DC district or the SDNY (southern district of New York). All of the judges that have heard these cases have ruled against Trump or his policies in the past.
Any arguments regarding constitutionality, legal interpretation or precedence are moot at this point. If American citizens are guaranteed a fair and impartial judgement, then why shouldn't the president be guaranteed such? During the Biden administration there were 14 negative district court judgments. For Obama, 12. For Bush, 6. During the administrations of the entire 20th century there were approximately a dozen. 65 days into the Trump administration there are already 15. Is this bias, resistance, revenge, lawfare, or corruption? Or some or all of the above? What it is not, is what the authors of the constitution intended...
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