Miami Judge Voids Noncitizen Voting Law; Supreme Court Expands Deportation Powers
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A federal judge in Miami dismissed charges against a Jamaican national who had allegedly voted while being a noncitizen, ruling not merely on procedural grounds but on the constitutionality of the underlying statute itself — a finding that the Trump administration's criminal enhancement law violated due process. The court found the statute was drafted so broadly it risked sweeping up lawful permanent residents who made honest administrative errors about their registration status, rather than targeting deliberate fraud.
The political timing dealt a sharp blow to a pre-midterm enforcement strategy the administration had used to reinforce claims of widespread noncitizen voting. A ruling striking down that legal vehicle, handed down by a judge in a swing-state city with a large immigrant population, was not the story Republicans wanted entering October.
Yet the judiciary did not move uniformly against the administration's immigration agenda. The Supreme Court agreed the same week to hear arguments that the government holds broader authority to detain immigrants without bail hearings than lower courts have permitted, and separately allowed the resumption of third-country deportations — sending migrants not to their home countries but to third nations that have agreed to accept them, a significant expansion of enforcement geography.
A separate ruling reinstated a federal prosecutor Trump had fired in July, finding the termination improper. It was the third or fourth such reinstatement of a fired federal official this year, reinforcing a consistent judicial line between at-will political appointees and career officials shielded by civil service protections. The Department of Justice's announcement that it would review the conduct of Watergate-era prosecutors — a move with no practical legal consequence given that Richard Nixon has been dead for three decades — was widely read as a warning shot to current and former prosecutors, including Jack Smith, who told the Senate this week he would prosecute Trump again and that he will not be silenced.