{"id":1669,"date":"2025-09-30T22:22:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/?p=1669"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:22:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:22:22","slug":"a-reagan-appointed-judge-just-wrote-a-blistering-anti-trump-decision-mother-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/?p=1669","title":{"rendered":"A Reagan-Appointed Judge Just Wrote a Blistering Anti-Trump Decision \u2013 Mother Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"


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President Donald Trump walks from Marine One after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Washington.<\/span>Alex Brandon\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily<\/em>.<\/a><\/div>\n

On Tuesday,<\/span> William G. Young\u2014a federal district court judge in Massachusetts and a Reagan appointee\u2014issued<\/a> a decision filled with obvious contempt for the unconstitutional actions of the current president of the United States.<\/p>\n

The ruling comes in a case brought by academic associations seeking to block the Trump administration\u2019s policy of targeting and arresting noncitizens protesting Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza. Judge Young\u2019s decision makes it absolutely clear that the First Amendment rights of students like Mahmoud Khalil<\/a> and R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk<\/a> were violated when federal agents detained them and sent them to faraway immigration detention centers.<\/p>\n

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\u201cICE goes masked for a single reason\u2014to terrorize Americans into quiescence,\u201d the Reagan appointed judge wrote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

The legal conclusions of the decision, which come after a nine-day trial involving 15 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, are significant. As is the evidence uncovered in the case. It was revealed that the Trump administration was relying on information from shadowy websites like Canary Mission<\/a> to determine who to target.<\/p>\n

The judge wrote that a hearing on how the government can remedy its unconstitutional conduct will be scheduled \u201cpromptly.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what sets the ruling apart is its mix of unapologetic evisceration of Trump and admiration for the rights he has trampled on. That it is no ordinary ruling is apparent from the first words of the 161-page decision.<\/p>\n

Young, who is 85 years old and was appointed to the bench four decades ago, begins by quoting a postcard he received on June 19 that reads: \u201cTRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS \u2026. WHAT DO YOU HAVE?\u201d Young replies in the ruling:<\/p>\n

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Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, <\/p>\n

Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States\u2014you and me\u2014have our magnificent Constitution. Here\u2019s how that works out in a specific case\u2014<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The judge goes on to write that the case he is deciding is \u201cperhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court.\u201d He concludes that there was not an \u201cideological deportation policy\u201d targeting pro-Palestine speech. Instead, there was something more sinister:<\/p>\n

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[T]he intent of the Secretaries was more invidious\u2014to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By defending that policy, Young writes, the president has violated his \u201csacred oath\u201d to \u201cpreserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.\u201d That Trump is \u201cfor all practical purposes, totally immune from any consequences for this conduct,\u201d Young adds, citing the Supreme Court\u2019s 2024 immunity decision, \u201cdoes not relieve this Court of its duty to find the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reagan appointee is similarly disdainful of Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s conduct under Trump. As he puts it:<\/p>\n

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Despite the meaningless but effective \u201cworst of the worst\u201d rhetoric, however, ICE has nothing whatever to do with criminal law enforcement and seeks to avoid the actual criminal courts at all costs. It is carrying a civil law mandate passed by our Congress and pressed to its furthest reach by the President. Even so, it drapes itself in the public\u2019s understanding of the criminal law though its \u201cwarrants\u201d are but unreviewed orders from an ICE superior and its \u201cimmigration courts\u201d are not true courts at all but hearings before officers who cannot challenge the legal interpretations they are given. Under the unitary President theory they must speak with his voice. The People\u2019s presence as jurors is unthinkable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Young is particularly disturbed by ICE agents\u2019 use of masks while detaining \u00d6zt\u00fcrk and others\u2014calling the government\u2019s defense of the practice \u201cdisingenuous, squalid and dishonorable.\u201d He explains:<\/p>\n

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ICE goes masked for a single reason\u2014to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard them as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks. Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor\u2014and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Elsewhere in the decision, Young quotes an almost surreal defense mounted by the government at trial. While cross-examining Bernhard Nickel\u2014a German citizen and Harvard philosophy professor who censored himself and abandoned a trip to visit a terminally ill brother abroad following \u00d6zt\u00fcrk\u2019s arrest\u2014a government lawyer seemed to imply that Nickel was simply imagining things. Specifically, the lawyer quoted the Danish philosopher S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard\u2019s maxim that \u201canxiety is the dizziness of freedom.\u201d As Young notes dryly, \u201cIt is an odd kind of freedom that compels one to leave writing unpublished, leadership positions unpursued, and terminally ill relatives unvisited.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is apparent throughout the decision that Young\u2019s horror is born out of patriotism. He laments that the blatant First Amendment violations so carefully catalogued in the case are unlikely to inspire all that much outrage, but calls for a return to what he considers America\u2019s ideals:<\/p>\n

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The United States is a great nation, not because any of us say so. It is great because we still practice our frontier tradition of selflessness for the good of us all. Strangers go out of their way to help strangers when they see a need. In times of fire, flood, and national disaster, everyone pitches in to help people we\u2019ve never met and first responders selflessly risk their lives for others. Hundreds of firefighters rushed into the Twin Towers on 9\/11 without hesitation desperate to find and save survivors. That\u2019s who we are. And on distant battlefields our military \u201cfought and died for the men [they] marched among.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The final pages of the decision are as unorthodox as its first. They begin with a quote about how \u201c[Trump] seems to be winning. He ignores everything and keeps bullying ahead.\u201d The line, Young explains, comes from a \u201cvery wise woman.\u201d Specifically, his wife. <\/p>\n

Young then dissects its meaning and its consequences: \u201cThe Constitution, our civil laws, regulations, mores, customs, practices, courtesies\u2014all of it; the President simply ignores it all when he takes it into his head to act.\u201d <\/p>\n

Young wraps up by quoting Reagan\u2019s lines about how freedom is a \u201cfragile thing\u201d that is \u201cnever more than one generation away from extinction,\u201d and that, as a result, it must be \u201cfought for and defended constantly.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pulling out all the stops, the veteran judge writes:<\/p>\n

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As I\u2019ve read and re-read the record in this case, listened widely, and reflected extensively, I\u2019ve come to believe that President Trump truly understands and appreciates the full import of President Reagan\u2019s inspiring message\u2014yet I fear he has drawn from it a darker, more cynical message. I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.<\/p>\n

Is he correct?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Finally, on page 161, there is a coda addressed to the anonymous letter writer who boasted about Trump\u2019s pardons and tanks. \u201cI hope you found this helpful. Thanks for writing. It shows you care. You should. Sincerely & respectfully, Bill Young.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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President Donald Trump walks from Marine One after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Washington.Alex Brandon\/AP Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. On Tuesday, William G. Young\u2014a federal district court judge in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-usa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}