DOJ Tries Acting Normal In New Jersey
Well, normal enough not to get sanctioned.
BREAKING: The Department of Justice did a totally normal thing in New Jersey!
After a year of open defiance, where “acting” US Attorney Alina Habba and Attorney General Pam Bondi threw up middle fingers and shitposted about “rogue,” “activist” judges, a prosecutor in New Jersey decided to try doing stuff the regular way. For a treat!
The unexpected gravitas occurred in one of the thousands of habeas cases currently swamping trial courts. The Department of Homeland Security recently discovered that 8 USC § 1225(b)(1)(B)(iii)(IV) requires mandatory detention of asylum seekers, including those who were released in the country decades ago and given work permits. Hundreds of judges across the country — but not the Fifth Circuit! — have scoffed at this discovery and ordered DHS to either grant immigrants a bond hearing or release them.
But DHS just … keeps doing it, forcing immigrants to race to file individual habeas claims before being disappeared to a gulag in Texas. Virtually every district court in the country is straining under the weight of dozens or hundreds of virtually identical habeas petitions which require immediate judicial attention. The problem is exacerbated by DHS’s total lack of interest in complying with court orders. That’s what caused immigration lawyer Julie Le’s courtroom crashout in Minnesota, during which she suggested that she’d welcome a contempt order because then she could finally get a rest from having to go to battle with ICE every day to get it to follow the law.
In Minnesota, Chief Judge Schiltz compiled a list of 96 court orders violated in his district in January alone. But Judge Michael Farbiarz of the District of New Jersey went one better and ordered the US Attorney’s Office to produce the list itself. On February 5, he instructed prosecutors to “enumerate each instance in which the Respondents or people acting on their behalf violated an order issued by a judge of this district between December 5, 2025 and the present.”
And to her credit, special attorney Jordan Fox complied. In a declaration which has not yet appeared on the docket but was obtained by Politico, Fox listed 56 violations of court orders in 547 immigration cases, including removing petitioners from New Jersey, failing to grant timely bond hearings, and late filings. Notably absent was an indignant suggestion that these orders were illegal or represented judicial overreach. In fact, Fox thanked Judge Farbiarz for “the opportunity, as a senior Department of Justice official, to submit a declaration” and for his “recent recognition” in a separate habeas matter that her office is trying very hard to comply with court rulings under difficult circumstances.
“I understand Your Honor’s concerns about these extremely important issues with constitutional implications,” she wrote. “The line AUSAs and staff of the Civil Division, their supervisors, the Front Office, and I will all continue to ensure full compliance with court orders.”
Alina Habba could never! Which is one of the reasons that the judges in the district refused to use their power under 28 USC § 546(d) to bless her continued tenure after her temporary appointment timed out. The president’s pugilistic personal lawyer stuck around for a couple months LARPing as US Attorney, but in December the Third Circuit said the jig was up, and she finally flounced out.
With no ability to install an interim replacement, Bondi appointed a troika of three normie lawyers to run the US Attorney’s Office in New Jersey.
Fox, who previously served as chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, supervises the Civil and Appellate Divisions. Although she’s only five years out of law school, she’s Bondi’s pick to run the office permanently. The New Jersey Globe reports that Fox has been negotiating with those “rogue” judges to appoint her under § 546(d), breaking the logjam caused by Trump’s refusal to nominate someone who can get blue slips from New Jersey’s two Democratic Senators. Perhaps this explains Fox’s recent professionalism. Or maybe it’s just that her future plans involve practicing law in New Jersey, rather than earning her living as a MAGA courtier.
Whatever the reason, Judge Fabiarz credited her filing as “careful, thorough, and plainly the product of a great deal of work by a great many professionals at the United States Attorney's Office.” But it’s not going to end the inquiry!
“On or before February 25 at 10:00am, the Respondents shall file an affidavit, executed by a senior official, detailing the procedures that are in place (or that will be put in place in the near-term) to ensure that court orders issued by district judges in New Jersey are timely and consistently complied with,” Judge Farbiarz wrote.
He opened negotiations by suggested that DHS might agree not to remove anyone with a pending habeas petition from New Jersey, since every judge in the district is administratively ordering it the second the case is assigned.
Which is great news for Fox! All she has to do to land her dream job is get ICE to quit breaking the law and defying court orders. Easy peasy!
I almost feel sorry for some of these people who thought a law degree would their ticket to fortune and fame, and were thrilled to be hired on at DOJ right out of law school only to be handed ten pounds of shit and a five pound bag.