Conflict is escalating — not just between President Donald Trump and the federal judiciary but even among the courts themselves. As the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Thursday in a case centered on birthright citizenship and the constant use of sweeping universal injunctions by inferior courts, federal judges across the country are continuing to halt the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, although at least one judge is bucking the trend and siding with the president. Here are the latest updates.

Trump Blocked from Deporting Hamas Propagandist

Biden-appointed Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered on Wednesday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release Indian national Badar Khan Suri from custody. Suri was an academic at Georgetown University when he was arrested in March after spreading propaganda supporting the terrorist organization Hamas, of which his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, is reportedly a senior officer. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin reported at the time that Suri was involved in “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and “has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.” Therefore, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked Suri’s visa and “rendered him deportable” under the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA).

Suri has subsequently filed a habeas corpus claim in a bid to stop his deportation. In the order she issued Wednesday, Giles demanded that Suri “be immediately released … during the pendency of his habeas proceedings…” She ordered that Suri is to remain in Virginia, attend court hearings in person, and cooperate with removal proceedings if necessary. The judge also barred law enforcement officers from using GPS tracking to monitor Suri’s whereabouts and ordered that law enforcement give both the court and Suri’s attorneys 48 hours’ notice if they intend to arrest him again.

ICE Barred from Deporting International Students

In another case, Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction barring ICE from deporting 18 noncitizens studying in the U.S. DHS canceled the students’ visas and allegedly removed their immigration information from a federal database, citing the fact that each of the students had been identified in the National Crime Information Center database. White determined that terminating the students’ immigration records was “unlawful,” even on the basis of visa revocation, and ordered that the records be restored, even though DHS agents had already pledged to do so.

Although White, appointed to the judiciary by George W. Bush, temporarily halted ICE from deporting the 18 students who had filed lawsuits, he stipulated that his is not a universal injunction but applies only to the 18 students involved in the lawsuits, while still reserving the right to expand the scope of the injunction at a later date to bar action taken against the supposed thousands of foreign students across the U.S. who may be impacted.

Judge Seizes Control of Rikers Island

In a shocking move, another federal judge has taken over the prison on Rikers Island in New York City. Clinton-appointed Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a sweeping order Tuesday placing the notorious prison complex under the command of an independent officer who will report directly to Swain, rather than to New York City officials. The judge also granted that officer the authority to change or adjust any New York City Department of Corrections policies deemed necessary.

The case originated in 2011, when complaints were lodged of abusive and excessively violent conditions being permitted by Rikers Island guards. In the years since, Swain has issued numerous court orders demanding various changes and reforms. While her latest order does not specifically allude to immigration or deportation policies, it comes shortly after New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) agreed to cooperate with ICE and allow agents into the prison for the first time in years to arrest and deport illegal immigrants detained there.

Trump Can Use 1798 Law to Deport Illegal Immigrants

One of the most controversial moves of the second Trump administration so far has been the use of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798 to carry out the mass arrest and deportation of Venezuelan nationals affiliated with the foreign terrorist organization Tren de Aragua (TdA). While the president’s use of the AEA has been challenged in various ways and to varying degrees by different federal courts, Judge Stephanie Haines of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania published an opinion Tuesday determining that the president does have the authority to arrest and deport TdA members under the auspices of the AEA, since the actions of TdA in the U.S. constitute an “invasion” or “predatory incursion.”

Haines, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, defined a “predatory incursion” as: “a hostile entry into the United States by a cohesive group of individuals, such as a military detachment or a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, who are united by a common goal of causing significant disruption to the public safety — whether that be the safety of persons, property, or pecuniary interests — of those within the United States.”

She added, “The Court finds that that definition is faithful to the meaning of ‘predatory incursions’ in 1798, but it also accounts for new applications given ‘changes in the world.’”

While Haines ultimately determined that TdA’s actions constitute a “predatory incursion” and thus warrant the president’s use of the AEA, she further claimed that the Trump administration was not providing accused TdA members with enough notice prior to deportation. In order to afford Venezuelan nationals accused of being TdA members enough time to file habeas petitions and present their cases in court, Haines ordered that the Trump administration give detainees slated for deportation 21 days’ notice before actually deporting them.

Judge Claims Trump Administration Retaliated against American Bar Association

On Wednesday, Obama-appointed Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a memorandum opinion in which he claimed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had engaged in “unlawful retaliation” against the American Bar Association (ABA). After the ABA joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration and openly criticized the president’s words and actions against federal judges, the DOJ canceled an estimated $3 million in grants to the ABA and further barred DOJ employees from using taxpayer dollars to travel to ABA events, attend ABA events while on the clock, and obtain DOJ approval before attending ABA events. Cooper argued that the DOJ’s actions regarding the ABA constituted retaliation against constitutionally protected free speech. “The First Amendment injury is concrete and ongoing. The ABA regularly engages in protected expressive activity, and DOJ’s termination of its grants directly punishes that activity,” he wrote.

Interestingly, the Trump administration did not directly contest the claim that it was acting in retaliation against the ABA. Instead, Trump administration attorneys argued that Cooper lacked jurisdiction, contending that the complaint was a contract matter and thus should have been brought in a court of claims, not in a district court.