Video at Civil Procedure-Immigration Intersection

I know I’m not the only immprof whose 1L course is Civil Procedure. This post is for all y’all.

A student turned me onto this video from Vox, released about 7 months ago, called Why Texas judges have so much power right now. It’s a well done (and blessedly short) piece explaining how federal judges in Texas are assigned cases. Short answer: the state’s 4 federal districts are further subdivided into even smaller local districts, some of which only have 1 judge, such that filing in a particular sub-district means getting a specific judge.

The substantive law that this video uses to explain this Civ Pro concept is the Texas lawsuit to prevent the Biden Administration from ending Remain in Mexico. (With a nod to the mifeprestone litigation, too.) In addition to discussing judge-shopping, the video discusses the concept of nationwide injunctions and how one federal judge can effectively control/set policy for the entire country.

-KitJ