Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to reporters as President Donald Trump listens, Friday, June 27, 2025, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
In a move that follows through on a memorandum from President Donald Trump for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to punish lawyers or law firms who engage in “misconduct,” the Trump administration is asking for “substantial monetary sanctions” against a California immigration attorney who tried and failed in multiple courts to stop a client with a decades-old attempted murder rap from being deported.
The sanctions motion was brought against Joshua Schroeder in Vang Lor”s case, filed in the District Court of Guam, a U.S. territory. First reported by Politico, the motion at the outset claims that Schroeder acted “in bad faith, unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied proceedings by maintaining positions without bases in fact and law” and submitted “patently meritless filings in three separate courts,” asserting in habeas corpus petitions that Lor, of Laos, was an Alien Enemies Act (AEA) deportee when Lor was instead subject to removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act due to his attempted murder conviction. What’s more, Lor is not Venezuelan.
“Schroeder nevertheless persisted in making frivolous arguments for the improper purpose of forestalling Lor’s lawful removal to Laos—in not only this Court but also in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,” the sanctions motion said. “Schroeder’s vexatious conduct has cost American taxpayers—requiring the government to respond to repeated, patently meritless filings in three separate courts; to take Lor off his original flight to Laos and hold him in custody in Guam for days; and to arrange new travel to Laos once this Court dismissed Schroeder’s meritless petition.”
DOJ attorneys argued that sanctions were needed to “deter” Schroeder, specifically, from “continuing to multiply baseless proceedings,” and to deter other attorneys, generally, from engaging in “misconduct.” That, the filing said, is in keeping with the president’s March memo “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court.”
“As the President has explained, the immigration system is ‘replete with examples of unscrupulous behavior by attorneys and law firms,’ behavior that thwarts the ability of the Executive to carry out the will of the people as legislated by Congress,” the motion said, citing the memo. “This Court should therefore impose sanctions on Schroeder[.]”
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The Trump administration said it was clear that Schroeder’s AEA claims were “baseless” because Trump’s invocation of the act applied to Venezuelans alleged to be gang members, not Laotians like Lor.
“Schroeder made myriad meritless contentions in his filings in this Court. Most egregiously, Schroeder’s assertions that Lor was being removed under the AEA were baseless, and he knew they were,” the filing said. “Schroeder knew about Lor’s INA removal order throughout the proceedings in this Court.”
“And Schroeder also knew that Lor, who is Laotian, would not have been designated an alien enemy under the Proclamation and therefore was not being removed under the AEA. So Schroeder had two good reasons to question whether the AEA was really the basis for removing Lor,” the administration continued.
Even if Schroeder “did not know that his arguments were frivolous,” he “recklessly maintained his frivolous arguments,” and he should be punished for a “departure from ordinary standards of care that disregard[ed] a known or obvious risk of material misrepresentation,” the DOJ lawyers demanded, asking a judge to order up “substantial monetary sanctions” against the attorney “personally.”
Politico reported that Lor was ultimately deported to Laos, which is in Southeast Asia, in June and that Schroeder explained that he acted the way he did because of “heightened pressure” amid a time crunch of hours familiarizing himself with the ins and outs of the case before his pro bono client may have been deported.
“I had to do it very quickly, because he was in Guam and they might have taken him immediately,” Schroeder reportedly said. “So, I was just putting the basics together in my mind the way I was seeing it.”
Bondi’s chief of staff Chad Mizelle weighed in Wednesday night, posting, “In case you were wondering, representing a client pro bono is NOT a defense to lying to the court or engaging in vexatious litigation.”
In case you were wondering, representing a client pro bono is NOT a defense to lying to the court or engaging in vexatious litigation.
— Chad Mizelle (@ChadMizelle47) August 7, 2025
The DOJ move to sanction Schroeder comes after years of the president’s allies complaining that Trump’s attorneys were persecuted and punished for merely advocating zealously, while pressed for time, in favor of overturning the 2020 election.
