At Baltimore’s federal courthouse Wednesday morning, it appeared to be business as usual. On the fifth floor, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Maddox oversaw a jury trial for a man charged with firearm possession, while on the third floor, Judge Julie Rubin prepared to conduct an arraignment.

But down the hall from Rubin’s courtroom, she and her colleagues on Maryland’s federal bench were the subject of litigation — represented by private attorneys, as defendants in an unusual lawsuit brought by the Trump administration.

The case centers on a standing order issued in May by Chief Judge George L. Russell III, in which he ordered a 48-hour pause in every case in which an immigrant had tried to block deportation by challenging the legality of their detention.

The Justice Department called the move “an extraordinary form of judicial interference” and sued the entire bench. Lawyers for the judges called the move unprecedented and improper.

Because no Maryland judge can oversee a case filed against them, a visiting judge and Trump appointee from rural Virginia was brought in to hear arguments in Baltimore, and he quickly indicated that he had a dim view of the case.

“I don’t have a good poker face. You probably picked up on the fact that I have some skepticism,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen told an attorney for the Department of Justice.

None of the Maryland judges attended the hearing, which focused on highly technical legal arguments and whether the case was brought in the proper form and venue. But it represents a larger battle between the Trump administration and Maryland’s federal judiciary, which has found itself overseeing a disproportionate number of challenges to the president’s policies.

Cullen did not rule Wednesday, and acknowledged that whatever he decided was likely to be appealed by either side, saying he would issue a written ruling by Labor Day, “recognizing whatever I say will not be the last word on this matter.”

Trump’s Justice Department wants an injunction to rescind the blanket pause on the deportation cases, saying it is holding up carrying out of the administration’s priorities on immigration.

The delays are imposed without specific consideration of the factors at play in each case, said attorney Elizabeth Hedges of the DOJ’s civil division. And when the government has moved to dismiss the individual challenges, “we’ve been winning.”

“In the meantime, we’re being irreparably harmed,” Hedges told Cullen.

The Maryland judges are being represented by Paul D. Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general under Republican President George W. Bush, who previously clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He’s argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court.

Clement said the standing order was not done at the request of, or for, the benefit of one side in the immigration cases, but simply to provide the court time to take a breath and size up the cases.

“We are talking about an administrative relief order to allow the court to decide matters,” Clement said.

If a migrant was moved out of the state or out of the country in the meantime, the court could lose its ability to provide relief, Clement said.

One of the most high-profile deportation cases in the country took place in Maryland, involving the Salvadoran man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to his native country before eventually being returned.

Clement said there were several other ways to properly take up the administration’s frustrations with the standing order.

“You don’t expect one branch to sue another to try to vindicate its institutional interests,” Clement said.

Cullen seemed to agree. “If recent precedent is any guide, I think you’d have a decision” already by taking another path, Cullen said. “It would’ve been more expedient than the two months we’ve spent on this.”

“This is a lawsuit to settle differences,” Hedges said. “This is not an assault on the separation of powers.”

Cullen served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia starting in 2018 under Trump and was nominated by him to be a judge in 2020.

Six of Maryland’s 10 active judges were appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, while three, including Russell, the chief judge, were appointed by President Barack Obama, also a Democrat. Judge Stephanie Gallagher was nominated by Trump, after she was originally nominated by Obama but the Senate failed to act on it.

This article may be updated.