Judge’s Past Red-State Advocacy Shadows Big Immigration Case

The judge who paused the Biden administration’s latest immigration program challenged by red states previously helped lead litigation against deportation relief policies while with the Texas attorney general’s office.

US District Judge J. Campbell Barker spent four years as a deputy state solicitor where he backed cases at the US Supreme Court contesting key Obama-era immigration initiatives before he was appointed to the bench in 2019 by Donald Trump.

Terence M. Garrett, a political science professor at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, said Barker’s record on immigration while advocating for Texas reflects “a hard-core right-wing approach.” Still, ...