Trump’s Ban Halted By Rookie Federal Judge: Soon Everyone Will Know Her Name

A rookie federal judge did something from her Brooklyn courtroom that suddenly thrust her into nationwide headlines. Today U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly is getting kudos and a lot of thank you posts for becoming the first judge to temporarily block Trump’s executive order. While she did not block the entire order, she put a temporary halt to the deportation piece that was keeping people detained at airports around the nation.

“Remember the name. Remember the face,” this is what one Twitter user wrote about the rookie judge, Judge Ann Donnelly. After a year and one week on the bench, this federal judge was tasked with the job of helping families whose members were stranded in the nation’s airports. Donnelly was also tasked with the job of putting a temporary stop to something the President of the United States had signed into order. That is a monumental task for any judge, never mind for one who is a rookie.

Remember the name. Remember the face. Thank you, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly. #ACLU #MuslimBan @realDonaldTrump don't attack her. pic.twitter.com/J3DX7MF1m3

— Bill Marler (@bmarler) January 29, 2017

President Trump’s executive order entailed putting a temporary halt on immigrants and refugees from several different countries from coming into the United States. This executive order took place while many people left their departure locations on flights thinking they would legally to get off the plane in the U.S. and go about their business.

If it was the day before, that wouldn’t have been a problem. When Trump’s order went through, many of these people were mid-flight to their U.S. destination and when they arrived in the U.S. they were detained under this new order. The airports saw mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, Aunt, Uncles, sisters, and brothers stranded on one side of the security gate with their loved ones on the other side.

Judge Ann M. Donnelly, who is an Obama appointed federal judge, heard about the detainees plight. From inside her Brooklyn court room she made a decision that just might put her in the history books. She put a halt to the President’s order so the people who were stuck in the airports weren’t being deported back to their departure locations. She didn’t want to see them spend their weekend there while airport security tried to figure out the next step, which was supposed to be deportation under Trump’s new plan.

Donnelly got thank you posts across the social media sites for “upholding the constitution” once people learned her name after what she had done. The Washington Post describes how Donnelly first came into law and worked her way up to to the bench of a federal court judge.

Donnelly was a prosecutor in New York for 25 years. She has been seen in the headlines a few times, with one important case years ago giving her some fame in her neck of the woods. Most people outside New York wouldn’t remember her name. In 2009 Donnelly made state judge, where she handled mostly criminal cases as she sat on the bench. When her name came up for the gig of a federal judge in the state of New York, she waited for 18 months for her time in front of the Senate. When it came time to convince the Senate they had the right person for the job, she went there with her entire family in tow, according to the Washington Post.

Donnelly visited the Senate that day with her extended family, which consisted of her mother, husband, her two daughters and their boyfriends. Then there was her sister and her brother and they came with their spouses and children.

For her opening comments at this meeting, she named and introduced every single family member that was there with her and one who was not, her late father. She did say that she knew he was there watching as well. That was one year and one week ago, which was an exciting milestone in her career.

On Saturday she had another milestone in her career with a monumental task put in front of her. What she had the opportunity to do is not something that comes along often for a federal judge. Very few federal judges can say what Donnelly can say today. That would be that she put a temporary halt a president’s executive order. While she didn’t stop all the aspects of this ban, she did intervene and ruled that the people who were detained did not have to be deported back to their departure location.

According to the New York Times, the judge’s ruling “stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions.” She did put a temporary stop to the deportation part of the ban, which at least took care of some of the nightmare for both the people detained and the people doing the detaining, as they were at odds on what to do next.

[Featured Image by Kathy Willens/AP Images]