WASHINGTON — A federal judge who blocked the Trump administration from deporting 350,000 Haitians has donated more than $38,000 to Democratic campaigns — including the main committee for the former president who appointed her and let those migrants in: Joe Biden.
The order revoking temporary protected status for the Haitian migrants from DC US District Judge Ana C. Reyes outraged administration officials and Republicans like Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who posted on X that “an unelected Democrat judge” had “unilaterally” halted President Trump’s deportations.
Biden appointed Reyes to the federal bench in February 2023 — one month after his administration allowed up to 30,000 Haitians to enter the US every month under a humanitarian parole program.
Others entered through the southern border — including several apprehended by Border Patrol agents in Texas. The Biden administration falsely accused agents of whipping those migrants.
The Uruguay-born jurist had previously served as a litigation attorney focused on international disputes at Williams & Connolly LLP, while working pro bono on behalf of refugee groups. She emigrated with her family to Kentucky when she was a child.
Reyes’ federal election contributions, which were previously exposed by Fox News, show that while at the law firm she has apparently donated exclusively to Democratic campaigns since 2008.
She maxed out donations to Biden for President with two $2,800 contributions in August 2020 — and shelled out $2,700 to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump in 2016.
Then-California Sen. Kamala Harris’ campaign also received $4,500 from Reyes during her failed run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019.
Reyes gave $200 to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress in 2019, one year after her first successful run for Congress. The Bronx and Queens Democrat has supported the “Abolish ICE” movement and even hawked “Dad Hats” bearing the slogan.
Moreno balked at Reyes’ recent order as amounting to an admission of “Permanent Protected Status” for all migrants let in from Haiti.
“When a Democrat president can create a TEMPORARY program and an unelected Democrat judge can unilaterally block a duly-elected Republican president from ever undoing it, we do not live in a democracy,” Moreno said. “This outrageous decision cannot stand.”
Separate cases that saw judges similarly block the Trump administration’s attempts to rescind protections for migrants from Venezuela and Nicaragua were struck down by appeals courts and the US Supreme Court.
Reyes ruled Monday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not have authority to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian migrants, which gave them work authorizations to remain in the US.
“Supreme Court, here we come,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin fired back on X. “Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”
The TPS program has provided humanitarian relief, work permits and temporary legal status to migrants from disaster-plagued and war-ravaged regions since the 1990s. The Obama administration added Haitians to the program after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit the island nation in 2010.
Reyes’ order stated it was “substantially likely” that Noem sought to terminate the program “because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants.”
“Secretary Noem has terminated every TPS country designation to have reached her desk — twelve countries up, twelve countries down,” the judge wrote.
“Her conclusion that Haiti (a majority nonwhite country) faces merely ‘concerning’ conditions cannot be squared with the ‘perfect storm of suffering’ and ‘staggering’ ‘humanitarian toll’ described in page-after-page of the Certified Administrative Record (CAR).”
