A federal judge who is overseeing a high-profile immigration case read online threats made against her on Thursday after she upheld the temporary protected status designation given to more than 300,000 Haitians before the second Trump administration.
In a court hearing, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes of the District of Columbia entered a number of death threats into the record.
“I hope you die today,” Reyes said, citing an email sent to her. “Enjoy choking on your tongue.”
“I hope you lose your life by lunchtime. … God damn you. I hope you die today. … The best way you could help America is to eat a bullet,” she read from another message.
There were also social media posts about hanging judges, including her. The Biden-appointed judge was referred to as a “b****” in one of the posts, and she noted someone called her a “c***” at one point.
As a Uruguayan immigrant herself, the case is particularly important to Reyes, who vowed she and her colleagues will not be “intimidated” by death threats.
The court hearing concerned her previous order that postponed the Trump administration’s termination of TPS for Haitian immigrants.
“During the stay, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” the order reads. “The Termination therefore does not affect the protections and benefits previously conferred by the TPS designation, including work authorization and protection from detention and deportation, and the valid period of work authorization extends during the stay.”
The Justice Department requested that Reyes rescind her order last week while also appealing her decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In response to the request, the district judge denied the government’s motion to stay her order.
Reyes noted she will issue a written order by Feb. 19 when both parties face their next deadline in the case before the appeals court.
The Department of Homeland Security is trying to end TPS designations for immigrants hailing from Afghanistan, Sudan, Venezuela, and other countries experiencing humanitarian crises or worsening economic conditions. Immigrants are challenging these actions in multiple court cases.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem maintains that conditions in some, if not all, of these countries have improved to warrant terminating TPS for certain groups of immigrants.
JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP FROM REVOKING PROTECTED STATUS FOR HAITIANS IN CONTROVERSIAL RULING
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit determined the federal government was justified in halting deportation protections for roughly 89,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua. That ruling lifted a lower court’s order. Noem hailed the appeals ruling as a “win for the rule of law and vindication for the US Constitution.”
“TPS was never designed to be permanent, yet previous administrations have used it as a de facto amnesty program for decades,” she posted on X this week. “Given the improved situation in each of these countries, we are wisely concluding what was intended to be a temporary designation.”
