In its first 15 months, the Trump administration has been found violating court orders in at least 31 lawsuits covering mass deportations, spending cuts, foreign aid restrictions, and other policy changes, according to a review of court records by The Associated Press. That represents roughly one out of every eight lawsuits in which courts have temporarily blocked the administration's actions, a rate legal experts said far exceeds patterns from previous administrations.
The violations span a broad landscape of executive actions. Judges have found the administration defied orders when it deported scores of accused gang members to a prison in El Salvador, withheld billions in foreign aid, suspended refugee admissions, and failed to restore programming at the Voice of America. In immigration cases alone, judges have documented more than 250 additional instances of noncompliance, from keeping detainees locked up past court-ordered release dates to denying bond hearings.
A case involving immigration detention illustrates the pattern. When U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, a Biden nominee, blocked a Trump administration policy of holding immigrants without bond in December, Justice Department officials insisted the ruling was not binding. By February, after the administration continued denying detainees release opportunities, Sykes accused Trump officials in a ruling of seeking "to erode any semblance of separation of powers," stating they could "only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist."
Legal scholars and former federal judges said they could recall at most a few violations of court orders during the full four-year terms of other recent presidential administrations, including Trump's first term. Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University tracking litigation against the administration, said the pattern represents something "qualitatively completely different from anything that's preceded it." Legal experts also noted that previous administrations were generally apologetic when confronted by judges, whereas the Trump administration's Justice Department has been "outright combative in some cases."
The administration has eventually backed down in about a third of the 31 lawsuits. However, legal experts warn the pattern poses serious dangers to democratic institutions. David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University, said, "The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country. When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country."
Higher courts, including the Supreme Court, have overruled the district courts and sided with the White House in nearly half of the 31 cases, a development critics say is emboldening further defiance. A White House spokeswoman said the higher courts had overturned "unlawful district court rulings" and that the administration would "continue to comply with lawful court rulings."
Of the judges who confirmed violations, 22 were appointed by Democratic presidents and 7 by Republican presidents. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented after one appellate ruling in June, writing, "This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last. Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law."
In one example, U.S. District Judge William Smith blocked the Department of Homeland Security from making billions in disaster relief funding contingent on cooperation with immigration priorities. DHS responded by keeping the immigration requirement on some grants but making it contingent on a higher court overruling Smith's order. The judge called the move "ham-handed" and said DHS was trying to "bully the states."
Judges are increasingly losing trust in the Department of Justice's integrity, according to former federal judges Jeremy Fogel and Liam O'Grady, now part of the nonpartisan group Keep Our Republic. Fogel noted that judges are growing frustrated because orders go unheeded, forcing them to repeatedly inquire why, a process he said "gets very mushy and very political."
The pattern has real consequences. In Eureka, California, school administrator Lisa Claussen said her district issued layoff notices to mental health providers after the Education Department discontinued federal grants for mental health services, despite a judge's December order blocking the move. U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson, a Biden nominee, has not yet ruled on whether the administration is circumventing her injunction through new funding restrictions.
