Trump 2.0 judicial appointees are much more likely to side with the administration over its mass detention policy

It’s a small sample size, but it could offer a preview of what’s to come.

Politico on Thursday published a list of the 373 federal judges who have ruled against the administration’s mass detention policy — and the 28 judges who have sided with the administration.

As Politico points out, “Even judges Trump appointed are largely against him: 44 of them have ruled against the administration in mass-detention cases. Twenty Trump-appointed judges have signed off on the policy.”

This is important. As a recent report by Alliance for Justice stated, “Where Congress and the Supreme Court seem, at times, to act in lockstep with Trump’s authoritarian and far-right agenda, there are still many instances when federal judges are acting independently and fairly.” This has certainly been what’s happened in cases related to Trump’s mass detention policy.

But one thing stood out to me while I examined the 64 Trump-appointed judges on the list: Four out of five, or 80 percent, of those appointed during his second term sided with Trump in these cases. Those four were Missouri district court judges Cristian Stevens, Josh Divine, and Maria Lanahan, in addition to Jordan Pratt in Florida (Kyle Dudek, another judge in Florida, ruled against the administration). Of the remaining 59 judges — who were appointed during his first term — only 16 endorsed Trump’s policy. That’s about 27 percent.

To be clear, that’s still higher than judges appointed by any other president. As Politico notes, “Only one Biden-appointed judge, Jennifer Rearden, and two Obama-appointed judges — Cathy Bencivengo and Gregory Woods — have sided with the administration’s view.” And of course, five second-term judges on the list isn’t a huge sample size.

But it’s still notable. As AFJ’s report says, Trump 2.0 judicial nominees “seem to have been selected for their unfettered loyalty to Trump, possibly even at the expense of adherence to the rule of law and the Constitution.” These nominees have repeatedly been called out for their responses to questions about the outcome of the 2020 election and what happened on January 6, 2021 — refusing to admit Trump lost the election and being careful not to say anything that may displease the president who nominated them.

This pattern could change, and it could end up being nothing. Or these rulings from judges confirmed during Trump’s second term could be a real-time illustration of their loyalty to the president and the bias they’re bringing to the bench. And they could offer a preview of what to expect for decades to come — long after this president leaves office.