WASHINGTON — President Trump’s signature campaign pledges have so far been enacted by a sweeping barrage of executive actions intended to shrink the federal government, deport illegal immigrants and rewrite gender policy.
However, those orders are facing headwinds in court as judges have cited various legal grounds to stall their implementation and cast doubt on when, if ever, they will take effect.
Litigation is a standard aspect of political debates, but Trump has this week faced a series of setbacks, spurring White House frustration with the judicial branch.
“It’s incredibly apparent that there is a concerted effort by the far left to judge-shop, to pick judges who are clearly acting as partisan activists from the bench in an attempt to derail this president’s agenda,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday.
“We will not allow that to happen. And not only are they usurping the will of the president and the chief executive of our country, but they are undermining the will of the American people.”
Migrant deportation flights
The Issue: President Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for the first time since World War II to expel alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which he has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
Three deportation flights packed with 238 alleged Tren de Aragua members departed Saturday night en route to El Salvador, according to that country’s president, Nayib Bukele, who released footage Sunday morning of them being roughly hustled to prison.
The White House says that El Salvador agreed to jail the Venezuelan deportees for about $6 million — almost half of the cost of imprisoning them in the United States.
The Ruling: The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit Saturday after the Venezuelan deportees received word of their impending transfer — arguing the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used in peacetime and that Trump was skirting immigration, asylum and regulatory process rules.
DC US District Judge James Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order before the flights arrived in El Salvador to allow time to consider the arguments, stipulating that “any plane containing these folks — because it’s going to take off or it’s in the air — needs to be returned to the United States.”
However, the Trump White House claimed the flights were out of US airspace by the time the ruling came through and could not be recalled.
What it Means: Boasberg halted further flights under Trump’s novel invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and is seeking a specific timeframe to establish whether White House officials violated his temporary restraining order — while Trump urged congressional Republicans to impeach the judge.
Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in a Tuesday interview that he will grudgingly comply with court orders, saying, “You can’t do that [defy them], however, we have bad judges.”
Is it in Effect? Standard deportation flights — packed with migrants given court orders of removal — continue to take place as Trump attempts to fulfill a campaign pledge to carry out the largest mass deportation in US history under the guidance of border czar Tom Homan, who has personally taken part in efforts to round up migrants accused or convicted of crimes.
“Americans can absolutely expect to see the continuation of the mass deportation campaign,” Leavitt said at her regular White House press briefing Wednesday.
It’s unclear, however, whether any more deportations of Tren de Aragua members will take place under different authorities as the ACLU’s lawsuit proceeds.
What’s Next? Boasberg has given the Justice Department until noon Thursday to answer five questions related to the timing of the Saturday flights and declare how many people were aboard under the Alien Enemies Act. The administration can also invoke the so-called “state secrets privilege” in response to Boasberg — essentially daring the judge to hold officials in contempt of court.
The timeframe to resolve the case remains unclear.
Transgender Service Members
The Issue: Trump on Jan. 27 issued an order barring transgender people from serving in the US military. The Pentagon says there are 4,240 service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria out of 1.3 million American troops — about one in every 500.
The military in 2011 implemented a bipartisan law that ended a longstanding ban on gay and lesbian service members. Outgoing President Barack Obama’s administration lifted the transgender ban in June 2016 without legislation.
Trump imposed a less-sweeping transgender ban during his first term and allowed those already serving to keep their jobs. The Supreme Court in 2019 allowed that policy to take effect. President Biden reversed the ban in 2021.
The Ruling: At least three federal lawsuits are challenging Trump’s proposed ban. DC US District Judge Ana Reyes on Tuesday issued a nationwide preliminary injunction in a case brought by GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
That case was filed in late January on behalf of six active-duty trans troops and two would-be recruits, with 12 additional plaintiffs later added, arguing that the cohort’s Fifth Amendment rights to procedural due process and equal protection would be violated.
The case leans in part on the Supreme Court’s landmark sex-discrimination ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County in 2020, in which the majority opinion by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch found that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”
What it Means: The transgender ban is likely to face an extended legal battle that could — as in Trump’s first term — be settled by the Supreme Court.
Is it in Effect? The preliminary injunction is set to take effect Friday, and means that the Pentagon cannot discharge transgender troops while legal proceedings move forward.
What’s Next? The Trump administration is expected to appeal Reyes’ ruling, though the outcome of the legal battle is likely to hinge on appellate review.
Federal Worker Buyout
The Issue: The Trump administration offered seven months of pay to federal employees to volunteer to leave their jobs by Feb. 6 — with the unusual buyout offer finding about 75,000 takers, or roughly 3% of the civilian federal workforce.
Unions representing federal workers challenged the parameters of the buyout, alleging it violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Ruling: Boston US District Judge George O’Toole ruled on Feb. 12 that the program can move forward, finding the unions lacked standing and that “disputes must first be administratively exhausted before the employing agency and the relevant administrative review board and any further challenges are properly heard in a court of appeals.”
O’Toole had previously issued two stays extending the buyout deadline.
What it Means: Unless another court intervenes, O’Toole’s opinion means any challenges to the buyout program would have to first proceed within the executive branch.
Is it in Effect? Federal workers who opted into the buyout are on track to receive it. However, reports indicate that some of the civil servants who took the offer were fired anyway — setting up potential additional litigation.
What’s next? Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative are seeking even deeper cuts to the federal workforce and thousands of workers are in the process of being fired, with those terminations challenged in court.
Dismantling USAID
The Issue: White House official Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have attempted to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID). More than two dozen current and former workers at USAID have argued those efforts are unconstitutional.
The Ruling: On Tuesday, Maryland US District Judge Theodore Chuang concluded that the efforts to gut USAID likely flouted the Constitution. Chuang issued a preliminary injunction and ordered the Trump administration to restore employee access to email and computer systems.
The judge also restricted DOGE from making any additional cuts. In order to make significant adjustments at USAID, the Trump administration needs to get “express authorization” from an official at the agency, per Chuang.
Underpinning the ruling was concerns that Musk was not confirmed by the Senate to his current role.
What it means: In the near term, the Trump administration is required to reverse some of its efforts to dismantle USAID, including by restoring email and computer access to its employees, and by taking steps to bring the agency’s headquarters back online.
However, the ruling also gives Trump a path to attempt many of Musk’s reforms again in the future as long as he goes through an actual official at USAID first.
That could change how DOGE attempts to make its cuts and reforms in the future. Earlier this month, Trump had announced that DOGE would be collaborating with cabinet officials on personnel decisions at various departments and agencies rather than acting unilaterally.
What’s next: There is more litigation over this ruling on the horizon. The Trump administration had put Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who is Senate-confirmed — in charge of USAID, seemingly creating solid ground for an appeal of Chuang’s ruling.
However, the ruling gives legal fodder to employees at other agencies who have been affected by DOGE, including the Departments of Education, Veterans Affairs, and the Internal Revenue Service.
“The evidence that shows or strongly suggests that Musk and DOGE, despite their allegedly advisory roles, have taken other unilateral actions without any apparent authorization from agency officials,” Chuang wrote.
Executive actions related to DEI programs and contracts
The Issue: In one of his most influential actions, Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 scrapping Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the government and terminating contracts with businesses that make use of them.
Liberal legal groups, Democratic officials and nonprofits immediately launched challenges in federal courts.
The Rulings: Last month, both Washington, DC, US District Judge Loren AliKhan and Rhode Island US District Court Judge John McConnell ruled against a government-wide funding freeze that included those DEI programs.
The Boston-based First US Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld the decision to unfreeze the federal funding in February.
Another federal judge on Tuesday ordered the reinstatement of DEI-related grants just issued by the Department of Education.
A third challenge from the city of Baltimore and groups represented by the left-wing legal group Democracy Forward also resulted that month in a federal judge blocking the termination of specifically DEI-related government grants, programs and contracts.
Trump’s Justice Department later asked a federal appeals court to halt that decision by Maryland US District Judge Adam Abelson.
Is it in effect?: Last week, the Richmond-based Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Abelson’s decision and allowed the DEI ban to proceed.
A three-judge panel on the appeals court unanimously struck down the Maryland jurist’s decision to place a nationwide injunction on the ban for being “likely unconstitutional.”
“We must not lose sight of the boundaries of our constitutional role and the imperative of judicial impartiality,” cautioned one of the appeals court judges, Allison Jones Rushing.
“Any individual judge’s view on whether certain Executive action is good policy is not only irrelevant to fulfilling our duty to adjudicate cases and controversies according to the law, it is an impermissible consideration,” added Rushing, who was appointed by Trump during his first term in 2019.
What’s next? Two other appointees of former President Barack Obama concurred, though each included a caveat implying that more narrowly tailored complaints in the future may succeed.
“What the Orders say on their face and how they are enforced are two different things,” wrote one of those circuit judges, Pamela Harris.
“Agency enforcement actions that go beyond the Orders’ narrow scope may well raise serious First Amendment and Due Process concerns.”
The Trump administration has already withdrawn its memo ordering the wider funding freeze on a host of grants and contracts, opting against fighting that battle in federal courts.
It’s unclear whether the pause on the Education Department’s DEI grants will be appealed.
Title IX issues
The Issue: The Biden administration administration’s attempt to rewrite Title IX to interpret “sex” as including all “gender identities” was halted by a federal judge before Trump took office.
The Ruling: In January, Lexington, Ky. US District Chief Judge Danny Reeves blocked the federal rule from former President Joe Biden’s Education Department overhauling the law, declaring it unconstitutional.
What It Means: The rule had enlarged the definition of “sex” for the purposes of filing discrimination complaints or letting people use restrooms corresponding to their “gender identity.”
An earlier Department of Education rule seeking to allow transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports was also withdrawn under Biden in December.
On Feb. 5, Trump signed an executive order aimed at “keeping men out of women’s sports” that directed the Education Department and other agencies to launch Title IX investigations into schools receiving federal funding.
Is It in Effect?: Lefty legal groups challenged that order by adding it to an existing complaint in New Hampshire federal district court against a state law banning trans athletes from participating in women’s sports.
The amended complaint in February set up the first fight over Trump’s implementation of Title IX, which has yet to receive a ruling.
Ending Birthright Citizenship
The Issue: During his very first day back in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order to effectively scrap birthright citizenship.
Under the doctrine of birthright citizenship, anyone born in the US automatically becomes a citizen. This is the modern understanding of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship guarantee to individuals “born or naturalized in the United States.”
Trump and his allies have argued that the interpretation of the amendment — dating from the immediate post-slavery days — should be narrowed to prevent so-called birth tourism, in which pregnant foreign women rush to the US to have their babies so that they receive automatic citizenship.
The Ruling: At least three different judges, each from a different state, have imposed injunctions blocking Trump’s executive order from going into effect. So far, the appeals courts have declined to nix those injunctions.
A coalition of at least 22 states, seven plaintiffs, and two immigration groups had sued over Trump’s bid to scrap birthright citizenship.
What it means: The blocks are temporary as the lower courts are still weighing the legality of Trump’s order. But some of the judges have signaled their belief that the Trump administration will lose on the merits.
There is legal precedent, including the 1898 US v. Wong Kim Ark case, in which the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship.
However, it is unclear whether that decision would hold under the current six-conservative-three-liberal Supreme Court split.
What comes next: Last week, the Trump administration pleaded with the Supreme Court to intervene and nix the injunctions against the president’s executive order. So far, the high court has not weighed in.
It has ordered plaintiffs to respond to the Trump administration’s arguments by April 4. Some of the conservative justices have indicated that they believe lower court judges are too excessive with nationwide injunctions.
Usually, the Supreme Court refrains from delving into cases until they’ve made their way up through the judiciary, so it could be some time before the justices actually consider the merits of the Trump administration’s arguments.
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