Keeping track of lawsuits and judges who are blocking Trump orders
Deporting Venezuelan immigrants
The administration over the weekend deported Venezuelan immigrants that it alleges are members of the gang Tren de Aragua without due process. It cited as its justification a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act. The AEA allows for expedited deportations if the person is from or the citizen of a “hostile nation or government.” It has previously been invoked only in wartime.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg quickly sought to halt the administration’s deportations, saying the AEA likely doesn’t provide “a basis for removal under” Trump’s executive order.
He suggested that the law was intended for “hostile acts perpetrated by enemy nations and commensurate to war” and that its provisions don’t “apply to non-state actors like criminal gangs.”
The deportation flights continued even after the judge’s order, raising the question of whether the administration deliberately ignored the order. It says it has not.
Elon Musk’s actions
A series of groups have alleged that Elon Musk is exercising unlawful authority over the federal government, by spearheading federal cuts and firing federal workers despite not being elected or confirmed to such a powerful position. The government has claimed that Musk is not actually the leader of the U.S. DOGE Service, despite Trump having announced and treated Musk as the head of DOGE.
U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang this week became the first to limit Musk’s actions and to indicate he had likely gone too far.
Chuang said that the evidence “supports the conclusion that Musk, without having been duly appointed as an Officer of the United States, exercised significant authority reserved for an Officer while serving in a continuing governmental position.”
USAID cuts
In the same ruling, Chuang signaled that the Trump administration’s efforts to cut the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid “likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways.”
“Where Congress has consistently reserved for itself the power to create and abolish federal agencies, specifically established USAID as an agency by statute, and has not previously permitted actions taken toward a reorganization or elimination of the agency without first providing a detailed justification to Congress,” Chuang wrote, “Defendants’ actions taken to abolish or dismantle USAID are ‘incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress.’ ”
In an earlier case, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali said the suspension of the USAID funds likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
Transgender military ban
Trump has sought to ban transgender people from the military, saying they lacked the “requisite warrior ethos” to achieve “military excellence.” Trump in his executive order called being transgender a “falsehood” that was inconsistent with the “humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes ruled this week that the executive order violated the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.
“Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives — to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,” Reyes wrote.
Ending birthright citizenship
Several judges have halted Trump’s attempt to block automatic citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors on U.S. soil — a right the Supreme Court has said exists under the 14th Amendment.
One of them, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, called Trump’s move “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a striking warning about Trump’s disrespect for the rule of law.
“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” said Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan. “The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.”
Suspending a refugee admissions program
After the Trump administration withheld funding from the United States Refugee Assistance Program, U.S. District Judge Jamal N. Whitehead said the move “eviscerates an entire statutory scheme, replacing it with the President’s unfettered discretion.”
“By withholding funding, the Agency Defendants likely act contrary to law not only by abdicating their own obligations to fund and administer the program,” Whitehead added, “but also by prohibiting resettlement partners from complying with their statutory obligations.”
Firing federal employees
This has been a trend across multiple cases.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ruled that the firing of Susan Tsui Grundmann from the Federal Labor Relations Authority not only transparently violated the agency’s founding statute, but also “longstanding Supreme Court precedent that is binding on this Court.”
Additionally, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled that the firing of Cathy A. Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board was illegal because such appointees cannot be fired unless it’s for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office — and the administration didn’t accuse her of such things.
And in another case, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) firings of probationary employees at several agencies were likely illegal.
“No statute — anywhere, ever — has granted OPM the authority to direct the termination of employees in other agencies,” Alsup wrote.
The federal funding freeze
Two judges ruled that the administration’s early freeze on federal, congressionally appropriated funds likely violated the law.
U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ruled that this likely violated the APA because the correct procedure wasn’t followed, and that the administration was likely “exceeding their statutory authority.”
U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan added in another case that the authority sought with the freeze was “breathtaking” and that “there is no clear statutory hook for this broad assertion of power.”
Prohibiting contractors from using DEI
Trump, in one of his earliest executive orders, sought to require agencies to certify that every recipient of federal contracts and grants “does not operate any programs promoting” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson said this likely violated the First Amendment, “because on its face it constitutes a content-based restriction on the speech rights of federal contractors and grantees, and further because such restriction expands to all of those contractors’ and grantees work, whether funded by the government or not.”
Other cases
Other cases in which judges have said that the administration likely acted illegally include: its removal of health-related webpages that supposedly promote allegedly radical gender ideology, its attempts to move transgender women prisoners to male facilities, and a National Institutes of Health policy that capped the amount of reimbursements available in medical research grants.
https://archive.is/nKDsO