The Department of Homeland Security launched in 2025 a “worst of the worst” list of "illegal aliens" arrested for alleged gruesome offenses, including “homicide-burglary,” “sex assault-carnal abuse” and “aggravated assault-strangulation.”
DHS General Counsel James Percival on July 23 launched his own "worst of the worst" list. What's remarkable is that the four people on it are as law-abiding as anyone you'll ever meet. Each is a sitting federal judge.
They made the list because they had ruled against the Trump administration on immigration cases. Percival claimed that the four judges engaged in "naked politics” cloaked "in the thin veneer of legalese."
That's what lawyers call an ipse dixit: an unsupported assertion the speaker claims is true
simply "because I say so."
DHS and Percival are doing something reckless – and even if they don't intend harm, they could get someone killed.
Threats against federal judges who rule against Trump are increasing
The U.S. Marshals Service is responsible for protecting federal judges, and its threat board was blinking red even before Percival's post. There were 564 threats against federal judges in the 2025 fiscal year, up 11% from the year before. As of Aug. 17, that number for this fiscal year is already 415 threats.
Family members of at least 11 judges who ruled against the administration have faced threats or harassment.
The threats aren't confined to immigration rulings. In 2025, U.S. District Judge John McConnell, an Obama appointee, temporarily blocked the administration's freeze on trillions of dollars in federal funding. He received at least six credible death threats and hundreds more threatening messages.
One caller left this message: "I wish somebody would f---ing assassinate your a--."
Conservative jurists are at risk, too. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has a reliably conservative voting record, but she's infuriated some MAGA figures by breaking with the administration in key cases.
In urging Congress to appropriate more funds for judicial protection, Barrett described trying to explain to her 12-year-old son why she had brought home a bulletproof vest: "He wanted to know what it was and why I had it, and I didn't know how to respond."
To be sure, Democrats have made their own contribution to this threatening climate. In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch that they would "pay the price" if their votes restricted abortion rights.
Schumer apologized the next day, but two years later a man attempted to assassinate Kavanaugh at his home. (There's no direct evidence Schumer's comment motivated the attack.)
A judge's son was killed. DHS is ignoring her warning.
After Percival posted the list, alarmed bar associations and federal judges pleaded with him to take it down. None had more moral authority to make that plea than Judge Esther Salas of the U.S. District Court in New Jersey. The judge's son was killed in their home in 2020 by an anti-feminist attorney posing as a delivery driver, intent on killing her.
“I just ask our political leaders to tone it down,” Salas said. "Criticize us on the merits, appeal us, but stop villainizing and demonizing my colleagues please."
Percival ignored the pleas, with every reason to count on the Trump administration's unwavering support.
President Donald Trump has viciously attacked Supreme Court justices who ruled against him (even those he appointed), calling them "fools," "disloyal to our Constitution" and a "disgrace to our nation."
At The Federalist Society conference in November, then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche declared that the Trump administration was at “war" with "activist judges," which apparently means any judge who rules against it.
After his Senate confirmation as attorney general, Blanche insisted the Justice Department does "respect the role of the judiciary,” a claim that should be taken with a grain of salt the size of a cantaloupe. The administration's war on federal judges goes on, and DHS is helping wage it.
Gregory J. Wallance, a writer and former federal prosecutor, is the author of, most recently, “Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DHS lawyer's 'worst of worst' list could get judges killed | Opinion
