The federal judge who issued a nationwide stay on deportations Saturday for individuals trapped in airports following President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration is an Obama appointee and a Clinton donor.
Judge Ann Donnelly of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York was appointed by Barack Obama in 2015 and is a graduate of Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.
Donnelly was recommended by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to become a federal justice, and she previously donated at least $250 to Obama’s 2008 campaign and at least $500 to Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign.
The order Donnelly issued Saturday affected refugees and immigrants trapped in American airports, prohibiting federal authorities from initiating deportation procedures. The order does not let them in the U.S. nor does does it impact Trump’s immigration ban going forward.
Several other judges followed Donnelly’s lead late Saturday and early Sunday to protect immigrants in airports. One judge was U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly in Seattle, a Reagan appointee, and the other two judges were both appointed by Democrats.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema was nominated by Bill Clinton in 1993 and her order protected DHS from deporting around 60 individuals from D.C. area’s Dulles International Airport. Brinkema also ordered that the immigrants have access to lawyers.
Judge Allison Burroughs, of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, blocked Sunday the removal of two Iranians detained at Logan International Airport. Burroughs was nominated by Obama and previously donated to John Edwards and John Kerry’s presidential campaigns, as well as to Elizabeth Warren’s senate campaign.
Conservative writer and lawyer Ann Coulter has criticized the stays of deportation citing supreme court case Fiallo v. Bell, which states that the court has “long recognized [that] the power to expel or exclude aliens [i]s a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control.”
