Judicial Tyranny is a Threat to the Rule of Law

Victor Joecks on Feb 23, 2026

Just because someone is wearing a black robe doesn't mean they're upholding the rule of law. Consider some recent judicial rulings.

Last November, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem published a notice ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Leave aside the merits of that decision. The law is clear that this decision belongs to the Trump administration.

Congress created TPS in 1990. It applies to citizens of other countries living in the United States. It offers recipients temporary legal protection after their home country has been affected by a natural disaster or other hardship. Basically, the government says things in your home country are so terrible that it won't force you to leave or deport you.

The Secretary of Homeland Security decides which countries fit this description. The designation can last for 6, 12 or 18 months. Before a designation expires, the Secretary can choose to extend it or end it. In the case of Haiti, the impetus for this "temporary" status was a 2010 earthquake.

"There is no judicial review of any determination of the Attorney General with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state under this subsection," the law states. After 9/11, Congress moved authority over enforcing immigration law from the Attorney General to the DHS Secretary.

The takeaway is clear. A judge doesn't get to second-guess Noem's decision. Doing so wouldn't just violate the law. It'd run afoul of recent Supreme Court precedent. In a 6-to-3 ruling last October, the Supreme Court smacked down a California judge who told DHS it couldn't end TPS for Venezuelan nationals.

That didn't stop District Court Judge Ana Reyes. Earlier this month, she ordered the Trump administration to keep TPS in place for Haitians. Her ruling reads like a screed one would find on Bluesky, the social media app for liberals seeking sanctuary from conservatives.

She admits that the court doesn't have jurisdiction over Noem's decision. But plaintiffs challenged "how the Secretary went about making her determination."

Yes, that's as absurd as it sounds. It requires deeming that "any determination" doesn't actually mean "any determination." Unfortunately, Reyes isn't the only judge who's more interested in outcomes than applying the law.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that the Trump administration can detain people it wants to deport. But two Texas judges, who should have been bound by that precedent, quickly found a workaround. District Judge David Briones said longtime illegal immigrants had a "liberty interest" in not being detained.

Criminals everywhere nodded in agreement. Law-abiding citizens, not so much.

Ironically, the disgraced Jeffrey Toobin identified the underlying problem in a recent New York Times column. He wrote about the American Constitution Society and its new president, Phil Brest. The group is trying to become a left-wing Federalist Society.

Its goal is "to expand the use of the courts to oppose President Trump's agenda," Toobin wrote.

But while leftist judges are clear on their enemy, they aren't sure about their alternative.

"As for what those judges will stand for -- as opposed to what they stand against -- Mr. Brest has no clear answer," Toobin wrote.

Understand what's happening here. Since Democrats in Congress can't stop President Donald Trump, leftist judges are actively working to thwart his agenda. They aren't neutrally applying a coherent judicial philosophy. They don't have one.

This violates the separation of powers. It's poison to the rule of law. It's the result of the left's embrace of critical theory worldview, which holds that truth is relative. Adherents believe that power, not principle, is all that matters.

Liberal judges can't undo the 2024 election results, but they want to strip Trump of his constitutional authority.

This is judicial tyranny -- a grave threat to the country's constitutional order.

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Victor Joecks is a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and host of the Sharpening Arrows podcast. Email him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or follow @victorjoecks on X. To find out more about Victor Joecks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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