Judge who stopped Haitian deportations bankrolled Democrats like Clinton, Biden, AOC …
A Washington judge who slammed the brakes on deportations for hundreds of thousands of Haitians is now facing uncomfortable questions about her own political baggage—and who’s been benefiting from her generosity for years.
Just hours before Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitians was set to lapse, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes stepped in and blocked the Department of Homeland Security from ending the program. The ruling effectively halted deportations and handed a major setback to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
But the decision also reignited scrutiny of Reyes’ political history. Federal Election Commission records, previously uncovered by Fox News, show the Biden-appointed judge poured tens of thousands of dollars into Democratic campaigns—including the very politician who later elevated her to the federal bench.
Those records reveal Reyes donated roughly $38,000 to Democrat causes going back to 2008. Notably, she maxed out her contributions to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign before he went on to nominate her to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
This wasn’t Reyes’ first high-profile clash with Trump-era policies. Around the time she blocked the president’s ban on individuals “expressing a false ‘gender identity’” from military service, her donation trail was already drawing attention.
The paper trail shows consistent support for left-wing causes: multiple donations to ActBlue, cash for Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff (D), and backing for the radical PAC Defeat By Tweet. That group boasts of raising money for liberal organizations in swing states every time President Donald Trump posts on his “controversial Twitter account.”
Defeat By Tweet later backed the Black Church PAC, a group aligned with defunding the police, which pulled in $150,000 from Kamala Harris’ second failed presidential campaign.
Reyes also opened her wallet for some of the Democratic Party’s biggest names. She gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run, $4,500 to Kamala Harris during Harris’ first failed presidential bid, and even chipped in $200 to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after the New York socialist arrived in Congress.
Despite that record, Reyes portrayed herself as a neutral arbiter when she torched DHS Secretary Kristi Noem from the bench. In her ruling, the judge accused Noem of lacking both facts and legal grounding—or willfully ignoring them—and scoffed that instead “she pounds X.”
Reyes went even further, endorsing the lawsuit’s claim that the decision to end Haitian TPS was “preordained … because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” adding bluntly, “This seems substantially likely.”
The Department of Homeland Security fired back fast. Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin vowed the administration would appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, calling the ruling exactly what many conservatives see it as: “This is lawless activism that we will be vindicated on.”
Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno (R), whose state has absorbed large numbers of Haitian migrants under Biden-era policies, was even more direct.
“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 wrote on X. “It’s not Permanent Protected Status. This outrageous decision cannot stand.”
Just hours before Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitians was set to lapse, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes stepped in and blocked the Department of Homeland Security from ending the program. The ruling effectively halted deportations and handed a major setback to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
But the decision also reignited scrutiny of Reyes’ political history. Federal Election Commission records, previously uncovered by Fox News, show the Biden-appointed judge poured tens of thousands of dollars into Democratic campaigns—including the very politician who later elevated her to the federal bench.
Those records reveal Reyes donated roughly $38,000 to Democrat causes going back to 2008. Notably, she maxed out her contributions to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign before he went on to nominate her to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
This wasn’t Reyes’ first high-profile clash with Trump-era policies. Around the time she blocked the president’s ban on individuals “expressing a false ‘gender identity’” from military service, her donation trail was already drawing attention.
The paper trail shows consistent support for left-wing causes: multiple donations to ActBlue, cash for Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff (D), and backing for the radical PAC Defeat By Tweet. That group boasts of raising money for liberal organizations in swing states every time President Donald Trump posts on his “controversial Twitter account.”
Defeat By Tweet later backed the Black Church PAC, a group aligned with defunding the police, which pulled in $150,000 from Kamala Harris’ second failed presidential campaign.
Reyes also opened her wallet for some of the Democratic Party’s biggest names. She gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run, $4,500 to Kamala Harris during Harris’ first failed presidential bid, and even chipped in $200 to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after the New York socialist arrived in Congress.
Despite that record, Reyes portrayed herself as a neutral arbiter when she torched DHS Secretary Kristi Noem from the bench. In her ruling, the judge accused Noem of lacking both facts and legal grounding—or willfully ignoring them—and scoffed that instead “she pounds X.”
Reyes went even further, endorsing the lawsuit’s claim that the decision to end Haitian TPS was “preordained … because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” adding bluntly, “This seems substantially likely.”
The Department of Homeland Security fired back fast. Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin vowed the administration would appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, calling the ruling exactly what many conservatives see it as: “This is lawless activism that we will be vindicated on.”
Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno (R), whose state has absorbed large numbers of Haitian migrants under Biden-era policies, was even more direct.
“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 wrote on X. “It’s not Permanent Protected Status. This outrageous decision cannot stand.”
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