Under the Constitution, federal judges do not have the sweeping power they nonetheless routinely wield.
When they wield that power in favor of sanity, however, we may at least take comfort in knowing that lawless lunatics who loathe American citizens have not taken over the entire federal judiciary.
According to Newsweek, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, whom President Donald Trump appointed during his first term in office, refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would have prevented the Internal Revenue Service from sharing illegal immigrants’ tax-related information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
BREAKING: U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich has DENIED a request to temporarily block the release of tax information to ICE and other law enforcement agencies. pic.twitter.com/l5D7dGY2AF
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 19, 2025
The ruling allows ICE to cross-check illegal immigrants’ names and addresses with IRS data.
Nonprofit groups had argued that illegal immigrant taxpayers should have the same privacy rights as citizens.
An illegal immigrant who pays taxes remains an illegal immigrant. That taxpaying status, however, does entitle the individual to more consideration than a non-taxpaying illegal should receive. Friedrich gave the question consideration and then ruled in favor of the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, ICE has stated that it will use IRS data only for “major criminal cases,” according to Newsweek.
Are you surprised that it took a Trump judge to deliver this big victory?
The real story here, however, involves not taxpaying illegal immigrants but the federal judiciary itself.
Consider, for instance, the Newsweek headline: “Trump Admin Gets a Win as Judge Allows IRS to Share Tax Data With ICE.”
Now, that phrasing — “judge allows” — has merit in this case because it accurately describes what happened.
In a larger sense, however, it also reflects Americans’ unconscious deference to a federal judiciary that they erroneously regard as the final arbiter of all constitutional questions.
Trump, of course, has encountered substantial resistance from federal judges overstepping their authority. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden appointed many of those judges. The fact that, in this case, a Trump-appointed judge made the correct ruling does not alter the nature of the problem.
Article III, Section 2, of the Constitution identifies the specific cases to which the federal judiciary’s power extends. These include, for instance, “all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority.”
Does this mean that judges have the exclusive right to decide what laws and treaties mean?
If so, one could scarcely imagine a more ludicrous parody of self-government. After all, Congress makes laws, which the president then signs into effect. Likewise, the president, with the Senate’s advice and consent, makes treaties.
For unelected judges to decide what laws and treaties mean, therefore, and for elected presidents and members of Congress to have no choice but to abide by those judges’ rulings, would render laughable the Constitution’s pretensions to a government “of the people.”
Take, for instance, Friedrich’s ruling. Yes, he ruled in favor of the Trump administration, and that amounts to good news as far as it goes.
Both the IRS and ICE, however, fall under the executive branch. Why, therefore, would a federal judge have the authority to decide whether those agencies may share data? Nothing in the Constitution privileges a federal court’s interpretation of that document over the respective and potentially competing interpretations of a president or Congress.
A more constitutional outcome, therefore, would have looked like the following:
As head of the executive branch, Trump orders the IRS to share data with ICE. Period. End of story concerning the action the IRS must take.
Then, perhaps those with grievances and standing may find individual relief from a federal court. In granting said relief, the court might even deliver a strong statement of its constitutional view. But that statement would not require the president, head of a co-equal constitutional branch, to respect said view by reversing his order to the IRS, which he, in his co-equal capacity, regards as constitutional.
That is how checks and balances work. No branch may dictate its constitutional interpretation to the other two. Of course, clashes will occur, but good-faith interpretations of the very clear document should keep those clashes from boiling over into full-fledged crises.
Alas, the lack of a “final word” offends authoritarian sensibilities. And that should convince everyone of the Founders’ immense wisdom in ensuring that, by a proper reading of the Constitution, no such final word exists. Only “We the People” have ultimate sovereignty.
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