Obama Judge Who Blocked Somali Deportations Just Changed Her Mind — After This Threat From GOP Lawmaker

There has never been so much left-wing judicial activism coming from federal courts in the age of Donald Trump, but thanks to pushback from a Republican congressman, at least one of those judges felt enough heat to do the right thing.

Judge Allison Burroughs — an Obama appointee in Massachusetts — spent months blocking the Trump administration’s termination of Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status designation, which had been scheduled to take effect March 17. She stepped in just four days before it was supposed to become effective and imposed an administrative stay. Then Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) introduced articles of impeachment against her for defying the U.S. Supreme Court’s explicit ruling on TPS termination. And then, like magic, she had a change of heart.

On Friday, Burroughs denied the plaintiffs’ bid to keep Somalia’s TPS designation alive and lifted her own administrative stay. The legal reasoning she applied was the same reasoning conservatives had been making for months.

“Because TPS beneficiaries will receive future benefits if — but only if — the Secretary decides to extend the designation of their country of origin… they have nothing ‘more than a unilateral expectation’ in their future TPS eligibility,” Burroughs wrote.

Temporary means temporary. It took impeachment articles to remind her of that, but at least the lesson landed.