When a federal judge struck down a Trump administration policy Detaining immigrants without bond Last December, it appeared to be a major blow to the president’s mass deportation efforts.
Instead, a senior Justice Department official insisted that the ruling was non-binding, and the administration continued to deny detainees across the country the opportunity to be released.
By February, District Court Judge Sunshine Sykes had had enough. Sykes, President Joe Biden’s nominee, Officials accused Trump In a ruling that month it sought to “undermine any semblance of separation of powers,” adding that they “can only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist.”
This case, which is not considered isolated, illustrates a broader pattern of challenge to lower court decisions during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Trump officials failed to follow court orders Especially highlighted In cases of individual immigration. But a review of hundreds of pages of court records by The Associated Press also shows an extraordinary record of abuse in lawsuits over policy changes and other moves.
The power struggle between the Republican administration and the federal courts – a test Basic principles of American democracy – Reflects an expansive view of executive power that also challenged the independence of federal agencies and the independence of the president Ethical obligationsAnd the role that the United States plays in the international system.
In the first 15 months of Trump’s second administration in office, district court judges ruled that she was violating the order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices, an AP review of court records found. This represents about one in eight lawsuits in which courts at least temporarily blocked the administration’s actions.
The White House’s aggressive policy moves have led to a series of lawsuits – more than 700 and counting.
The violations in the 31 cases add to more than 250 cases of non-compliance The judges have recently highlighted 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 could recall at most some violations of the court’s rulings over the full four-year spans of other recent presidential administrations, including the first time Trump took office. They also noted that previous administrations were generally apologetic when confronted by judges; The Trump administration’s Justice Department has been downright aggressive in some cases.
“What the court system has seen in the last year and a half is qualitatively very different from anything that has come before it,” said Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor who studies federal courts. Pursuing lawsuits against the Trump administration.
Although Trump officials eventually dropped about a third of the 31 lawsuits, legal experts say their handling of the court orders poses serious risks.
“The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country,” said David Suber, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University. “When it ceases to feel binding, respect for the rule of law across the country is likely to collapse.”
The AP review also found that higher courts, including the Supreme Court, overruled district courts and sided with the White House in nearly half of the 31 cases. Critics say these decisions encourage the administration to ignore judges’ orders.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the higher courts had overturned the district court’s “unlawful rulings.” She added in a written statement that the administration “will continue to adhere to the rulings of the legal courts.”
“President Trump’s entire administration is lawfully implementing the America First agenda he was elected to endorse,” the statement said.
Among other noncompliance, the justices found that the White House defied rulings when it deported dozens of accused gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, withheld billions of dollars in foreign aid and failed to restore programs on the Voice of America. The three cases date back to the first few months of the new administration, but judges have continued to find violations since then, including two cases in April.
“The danger is that this will become normalized,” said Joanna Suryani, a lawyer with the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, which tracks cases of non-compliance. The group is also involved in lawsuits against the administration.
In October, it took little time for U.S. District Judge William Smith to conclude that Department of Homeland Security officials had violated one of his orders. Smith, George W. Bush’s nominee, had blocked them from providing billions of dollars in disaster relief funding to states on the condition that they cooperate with the president’s immigration priorities.
DHS responded by keeping immigration requirements on some grants, but making them conditional on a higher court overriding Smith’s order. The judge called the move “clumsy” and said DHS was trying to “bully the states.”
In a case related to the suspension of refugee admissions, US District Judge Jamal Whitehead, Biden’s nominee, accused the Justice Department last May of “hallucinating new text” in the appeals court order and “rewriting it” to achieve the government’s preferred outcome.
In four additional cases reviewed by the AP, judges stopped short of making a clear written finding of noncompliance, but still criticized the administration’s response to their orders.
Of the judges who confirmed violations, 22 were appointed by Democratic presidents and 7 were appointed by Republican presidents.
Former federal judges Jeremy Vogel and Liam O’Grady said judges are losing confidence in the integrity of the Justice Department.
This makes them “more aggressive in accusing the government of bad faith,” said O’Grady, who with Fogel is now part of the nonpartisan Democratic group Save Our Republic.
Vogel said judges are also frustrated.
He added: “They issue orders and they are not complied with. Then they have to inquire why the orders are not complied with. This is where it gets very mushy and very political.”
In Eureka, California, school principal Lisa Clausen worries about the impact on her students’ mental health if a judge doesn’t find the Department of Education in violation of a court order on federal grants.
The grant money allowed the school district in the poor coastal community in Northern California to hire more than a dozen psychologists and social workers to help students struggling with substance abuse and suicidal thoughts.
Trump administration education officials told schools in California and other states last year that they would halt the grants; The administration opposed diversity considerations in the grant process.
U.S. District Judge Kimberly Evanson permanently blocked the move in December, but California and 15 other states now say the administration is getting around its injunction by imposing new rules, including an initial limit of six months of funding.
Education Department lawyers said they wanted to know whether schools were making progress on performance goals before releasing additional funds. They added in the court filing that the judge’s order did not impede the six-month limit.
Evanson, Biden’s nominee, has not yet ruled.
Without a one-year funding guarantee, Eureka City Schools and other districts say they have already issued layoff notices to mental health providers or eliminated positions.
“We have a lot of kids who don’t trust adults for very good reason, and for them to be able to take away this scholarship the way they do…,” Clausen said in a low-key phone interview. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
In court filings, Justice Department lawyers generally disputed accusations that the government did not comply. They argued over the meaning of the words, cited favorable appeals court rulings, and said they were acting outside the scope of the court order, among other legal maneuvers.
Outside of court, Trump and White House officials did just that He objected to the federal judges. Vice President J.D. Vance even suggested that the president could ignore court orders.
Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the conservative legal advocacy group Article III Project, said many judges who find violations ignore laws that clearly prohibit their rulings.
He said Trump officials “generally comply, appeal and win.” “If they defy orders from left and right, they will lose.”
In March, a federal appeals court ruled that Sykes, the California judge, likely exceeded her authority in requiring bond hearings across the country and stayed her decision in February.
The result was not unusual.
In 15 of the 31 lawsuits reviewed by the AP, the appeals court or the Supreme Court allowed the administration’s underlying policy, limited the district court’s efforts to correct or punish noncompliance, or both.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized her fellow justices after one such ruling.
“This is not the first time the Court has closed its eyes to noncompliance, and I fear it will not be the last,” she wrote in June in a dissent joined by the court’s two other liberal justices. “However, every time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for the courts and the rule of law.”
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Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed.