Judge Gordon J. Gallagher is the latest in a long line of district court judges, most of them Biden-appointed, that have issued rulings not so much based on law, but more so on how to stop the Trump administration's Article II powers of protecting and defending the country, and also administering the immigration laws currently on the books. 

The carnage from Sunday's horrific Molotov cocktail attack on a group of Jews walking silently in a Boulder, Colorado park to raise awareness and show solidarity for the remaining hostages held by Hamas expanded, as 15 people have now reported burn injuries, and a dog was burned in the process as well. The age range of victims now spans 25 to 88-years-old, and includes one Holocaust survivor. 

The unrepentant terrorist, Mohamed Soliman, according to the FBI and acting U.S. Attorney for the State of Colorado, not only confessed to committing the antisemitic atrocity, but said he would do it again if he had the means and opportunity. He said he'd been planning the attack for a year, but chose to wait until his daughter's high school graduation before lighting a bunch of Jews on fire. He was able to release two of 16 Molotov cocktails he had prepared, but accidentally set himself on fire in the process, slowing down his attempted mass murder spree. He also said Allah is greater than his family, and Allah agrees with him that he needs to kill more Jews, even if it means hardship for his family.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced by Monday night that the family - Soliman's wife, Hayam El Gamal, and their five children, were arrested, questioned, and fast-tracked for immediate removal from the country. Enter Judge Gallagher, who couldn't resist the siren song of a pro-illegal immigration attorney.

An emergency appeal on Wednesday was granted by the Judge to El Gamal's lawyer, Susanna Dvortsin. Here's where the story gets interesting. Dvortsin, who hangs her shingle outside a solo practice in Denver, has a checkered history with immigration law. In 2006, while serving as an employee of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she lied on her SF-86 form. She did not disclose that she had married an illegal alien, did not disclose the psychiatric medication she was on, nor did she disclose her foreign travel history as required. She was terminated. 

In 2019, in South Dakota, representing a client in another immigration case, she conducted herself in a manner that caused her to endure a 115-day suspension of her law license. 

But she allegedly befriended El Gamal to a significant degree to file an appeal for habeas corpus on her behalf as a "next friend". Her complaint? Homeland Security's priority in deporting illegal aliens was to concentrate on those here illegally for up to two years. Dvortsin in her emergency brief said El Gamal and the children had been here for almost three years, so they are ineligible for priority deportations. While you're shaking your head at the legal nitpicking here, keep in mind that they're here illegally - every single one of them. 

In August of 2022, Soliman, El Gamal, and their five children obtained temporary visitor visas. They are limited to six months, and specifically do not allow the holder of the visitor visa from establishing residence, seeking employment, and you must show intent to return home, or onward to some other country of destination, within those 80 days. Soliman was further granted a work permit by the Biden administration, which has also since expired, along with the visitor visa, as of mid-2023. El Gamal has been working here illegally as a network engineer. She has applied for an advanced degree visa, but it has not been granted. Neither has her claim for asylum. After Sunday, it will never be granted.  

USA Today, along with some other media outlets, featured the sob story of the poor daughter of the man who waited for her to graduate high school before lighting Jews on fire. She said she embraced the move to this country and wanted to go into the field of medicine and become a doctor. The problem with that, of course, is that under the visitor visa, even if it hadn't expired, which it has, she's not allowed to "move to this country." That's specifically outside the parameters for which the visitor visa is granted. Trips to Disneyland? Sure. Settling down? Registering and attending school? Establishing roots? Not legal activities for people here with a visitor visa. 

Dvortsin in her restraining order request made this claim, according to the Washington Post. 

The family’s attorneys wrote that officials violated their constitutional rights and other federal laws by depriving them of due process and protection from being punished for another person’s alleged crimes.

Of course, this is Constitutional nonsense. Even if you want to give the family the benefit of the doubt while their claim of asylum is being heard, the law is pretty clear here. 

That last part about spouses or children of anyone who has engaged in terrorist activity within the last five years? Well, looks like Dad just screwed them all, making them inadmissible. Judge Gallagher didn't address any law here in his order. He just signed a piece of paper saying they stay, because they're friends of this lawyer, and time is of the essence. If this order stands, there is no rule of law anymore. 

Secretary Noem said the family has been moved to a detention facility in Texas, pending a speedy plane out. It remains unclear whether they are still in the country or not by the time the order came out by Judge Gallagher Wednesday afternoon. 

In Gallagher's order, he ordered that the family could not be removed from either the state of Colorado or the United States. By the time his order had been made public, they were already in Texas. So the first part of his edict is moot. It is unclear when the government was actually served the court order. Releasing it publicly to the news media doesn't count. They have to be served. Before this is all over, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see another round of 'drat the luck, that plane took off an hour ago,' before the pilot gets served the order to stand down. We'll see. 

As for Judge Gallagher, what do we know about him? He was nominated to the bench in the fall of 2022, had a relatively unremarkable confirmation hearing in December, and was championed from nomination to floor vote by Colorado Senator Michael Bennet. Here's what Bennet had to say about Gallagher then. 



On Sunday, global jihad came to Boulder. 48 hours later, on the same Senate floor, Bennet was understandably shaken. 



His condemnation sounded sincere enough on Tuesday. Those words rang very hollow by Wednesday when his white knight of a judge, Gordon J. Gallagher, threw caution, Article II, the Constitution, and common sense out the window the first chance he could in order to protect the family of an antisemitic terrorist living here in violation of U.S. law. Bennet talked about Gallagher's character and how he was born for this moment, a moment which is now being written as infamy. 

By the way, this analysis by Oilfield Rando is precisely why I'm never leaving X. 

If the process server caught up with Homeland Security before the family boarded the next plane out and the Jew hater's family is still in Texas, the government will now have to file an appeal to the 10th Circuit to see if this latest round of judicial lawlessness from a district court stands or falls. 

If only we had a court, a body of justices that could be placed in a position of oversight for all these hundreds and hundreds of district courts, supervising their conduct. And if it appears a trend develops showing them getting a little too far out over their skis, they could rein them in and limit their scope. That way, it wouldn't appear we're living in a democratically-elected republic that is for all intents and purposes being run as a tyranny by a cabal of black robes. If only...