When a federal judge blocked a Trump administration policy of detaining immigrants without bond last December, the White House simply ignored it. Instead of complying, Justice Department officials insisted the ruling was not binding and continued denying detainees across the country a chance for release. By February, the judge, Sunshine Sykes, a Biden appointee, had seen enough. In a ruling that month, Sykes accused Trump officials of seeking "to erode any semblance of separation of powers," saying they could "only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist."
The case is far from isolated. An examination of hundreds of pages of court records reveals an extraordinary pattern of defiance spanning multiple policy areas. In the administration's first 15 months, district court judges ruled the government was violating orders in at least 31 lawsuits covering issues including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts, and immigration practices. That represents roughly one out of every eight lawsuits in which courts temporarily blocked the administration's actions. Judges have also documented more than 250 instances of noncompliance in individual immigration petitions, from failing to return property to keeping immigrants detained past court-ordered release dates.
Legal scholars and former federal judges said they cannot recall more than a handful of such violations across entire four-year terms of other recent administrations, including Trump's first presidency. A key distinction: previous administrations typically apologized when confronted by judges. The Trump administration's Justice Department, by contrast, has been combative.
"What the court system is experiencing in the last year and a half is just qualitatively completely different from anything that's preceded it," said Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor who studies federal courts and tracks litigation against the administration.
The administration eventually backed down in roughly a third of the 31 cases. Yet legal experts warn the pattern poses serious dangers. "The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country," said David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University. "When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country."
Among documented instances of noncompliance, judges found the administration deported scores of accused gang members to a prison in El Salvador, withheld billions in foreign aid, and failed to restore programming at Voice of America. In one October case, U.S. District Judge William Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, called the administration's response to his order "ham-handed" after officials attempted to keep an immigration requirement on disaster relief grants while waiting for a higher court to overturn his ruling.
Higher courts have provided the administration a significant advantage. An AP review found that appellate courts and the Supreme Court sided with the White House in nearly half of the 31 cases, overruling district judges. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the higher courts had overturned "unlawful district court rulings" and stated the administration would "continue to comply with lawful court rulings."
Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the trend in a June dissent joined by the court's two other liberal justices. "This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last," she wrote. "Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law."
Of the judges who confirmed violations, 22 were appointed by Democratic presidents and 7 by Republican presidents. Former federal judges Jeremy Fogel and Liam O'Grady said judges are losing trust in the integrity of the Justice Department, making them more aggressive in accusing the government of bad faith.
Meanwhile, the administration's policy moves have prompted over 700 lawsuits and counting.
