Last week, federal trial court Judge Kate Menendez issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting use of tear gas and other riot control weapons by ICE in Minneapolis. She found ICE was using them in violation of protestors’ 1A rights. She also prohibited ICE from violating protestors’ 4A rights by unlawful searches and seizures. Today, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the Trump regime an administrative stay of Menendez’s injunction. 1/ #LawFedi https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca8.113629/gov.uscourts.ca8.113629.00805436077.0_2.pdf
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@heidilifeldman
What is the logic in that?
@heidilifeldman I really miss back when America at least *pretended* that it had law for everyone...
An administrative stay pauses a lower court’s order while the appeals court hears the substantive appeal. Supposedly, it does not indicate the appeals court’s views of the the merits. The Eighth Circuit’s order granting the stay is unsigned and gives no reason or context for it. 2/
The Eighth Circuit is notoriously right wing. It has the largest Republican-appointee majority of any federal appellate court. Trump appointed four of these, 2 of whom were rated “not qualified” by the ABA. https://ballsandstrikes.org/nominations/trump-judicial-nominations-preview-appeals-court-part-2/ 3/
Two of Trump's appointees to the hard right 8th Circuit federal court of appeals received a "not qualified" from the ABA?
Lawyers, like investment advisers, hate to say anything bad about a prospective federal judge. You have to be really bad to earn the ABA's "not qualified" rating.
See also https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/politics/trumps-appeals-court-judges.html. “…there is increasingly such a thing as a Trump judge. The president’s appointees voted to allow his policies to take effect 133 times and voted against them only 12 times. Ninety-two percent of their total votes were in favor of the administration. That figure far outstrips support for Mr. Trump’s agenda from appeals court judges appointed by other Republican presidents, and from Mr. Trump’s appointees to the district courts.” 4/
@heidilifeldman I wrote about this, and some ways to cure it. We had a chance to do this during the Biden era but now it would take Congress passing a law and overriding a veto.)
"Do We Need Rubber Rooms for Federal Judges? Two Plans To Reduce The Long Tailed Impact of Trump Judicial Appointees"
I have zero confidence in the Eighth Circuit or the Roberts Court meaningfully adjudicating the Minneapolis plaintiff-protesters’ claims that ICE in Minnesota is violating the 1st and 4th Amendments of U.S. Constitution, often by using violent and retaliatory tactics. 5/
@heidilifeldman I have zero confidence in most courts. Even if they are even-handed, MAGAmoron has shown courts can be ignored and no one cares.
There was no legal compulsion for the Eight Circuit today to administratively stay the trial judge’s temporary restraining order. Grant or withholding of an administrative stay is discretionary. But apparently the 8th Circuit is more concerned with giving permission to ICE continue marauding than with any effort to check it, however temporarily. 6/
Meanwhile, today in Minneapolis, federal agents appear to be pepper spraying a protester WHILE three agents are holding him down on the ground. 7/ original link https://www.startribune.com/ice-raids-minnesota/601546426; archived version https://archive.is/2026.01.22-122948/https://www.startribune.com/ice-raids-minnesota/601546426
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But in the meantime people are getting kidnapped and gassed in the streets whereas without the stay people would stop being kidnapped and gassed while they hear the merits of the case.