Judge reads death threats during hearing on Trump decision to end legal protections for Haitians

A federal judge used part of a court hearing Thursday to read email and social media death threats she received following her ruling blocking the Trump administration from ending temporary immigration protections for Haitians living in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington refused to put that decision on hold. But before adjourning, she also took the unusual step of addressing some of the profane criticism and threats it engendered and defending the work of her judicial colleagues, who she said regularly receive such messages these days.

“We will continue to do our jobs as best as we know how,” she said. “We will not be intimidated.”

In a ruling last week, Reyes blocked the termination of temporary protected status, or TPS, for Haitians while a lawsuit challenging the Republican administration’s effort to end it proceeds. Her decision came one day before that designation for people from the Caribbean island nation had been scheduled to expire.

The Homeland Security secretary may grant TPS if conditions in home countries are deemed unsafe for return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangers. TPS recipients are allowed to live and work in the U.S., but the status doesn’t provide a legal pathway to citizenship. The U.S. initially gave the protection to Haitians following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake that rocked their homeland, and extended it several times after that.

Roughly 350,000 Haitians are legally living and working in the U.S. under the country’s TPS designation. Haiti is one of several countries that President Trump has sought to strip of such protections as part of his administration’s mass deportation effort.

Reyes, who was nominated by Democratic President Biden, spent much of Thursday’s hearing grilling an attorney for the government about how pausing last week’s decision would impact Haitian TPS recipients.

The administration argued in a court filing that Reyes should issue a stay in part because it was likely to prevail on its claim that she lacked authority to review the decision to end Haiti’s TPS. Separately, the administration has appealed her decision.

Department of Justice attorney Dhruman Sampat said the administration had no plans to target Haitian TPS holders for removal if the judge paused her order.

Reyes dismissed that claim. Absent her order, the judge said, it was “likely” that “law-abiding” Haitian TPS holders “who have been contributing to our economy” would be picked up by immigration agents and held in detention centers indefinitely.

When Sampat tried to move on from the discussion, Reyes cut him off, saying she wanted people to see what happens when you’re dealing with “human lives in a democratic society.”

Reyes said she was hesitant to share the threats she received following her Feb. 2 ruling and consulted colleagues beforehand. She read directly from two emails, one of which called for her to “eat a bullet.”

The Biden administration said in 2022 that Reyes, who came to the U.S. from Uruguay, would be the first Hispanic woman and “openly LGBTQ person” to ever serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Reyes said Thursday that she was a federal judge not because she was a “foreign-born lesbian,” as some people had written. She graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and spent more than 20 years handling high-profile federal litigation at a law firm. She also said she never hidden the fact that she was an immigrant from federal officials.

“People are entitled to their views,” she said. “I have absolutely no problem with anyone disagreeing with me. But I do feel compelled to clarify a couple of misconceptions.”

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.