The Daily Populous Wednesday April 30th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by abcnews.go.com and submitted by StupendousMan1995

The administration has been sued over nearly every element of Trump's agenda.

Since Donald Trump took office 100 days ago, the president and his administration have faced an average of more than two lawsuits per day, challenging nearly every element of his agenda.

The breakneck pace of the president's policies has been matched in nearly equal force by a flood of litigation -- at least 220 lawsuits in courts across the country -- challenging more than two dozen executive orders, the firing of twenty high-ranking government officials, and dozens of other executive actions.

While the Trump administration has had some victories in the courts, federal judges have blocked key parts of Trump's agenda ranging from parts of his immigration policy and military guidelines to his effort to roll back diversity and equity initiatives.

"The administration has basically gone on a shock-and-awe bombing campaign," said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University. "There is a huge amount of what they are currently doing that they probably could have achieved lawfully, but they have crashed through any of the existing legal guardrails in an attempt to do everything, everywhere, all at once."

The suits have come at a steady clip -- 20 in January, approximately 70 in both February and March, and about 50 so far in April -- as the Trump administration has rolled out its new policies.

Approximately 60 of those cases have focused on the president's immigration policy, with courts so far blocking the president's attempts to remove birthright citizenship, withhold funding from sanctuary cities, remove noncitizens to countries other than their place of origin with little-to-no due process, and strip thousands of their temporary protected status. Some of those policies have earned the president rebukes from judges questioning the rationale for his unilateral immigration policy.

"It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals," U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, said of Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. "There are moments in the world's history when people look back and ask, 'Where were the lawyers, where were the judges?' In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable. I refuse to let that beacon go dark today."

People gather to protest Project 2025 in front of the Supreme Court, March 16, 2025. Bonnie Cash/AFP via Getty Images

Courts have also blocked the Trump administration from effectively banning transgender people from military service, limiting gender-affirming care, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, attempting to freeze trillions in funding to states and nonprofits, and moving to block billions in foreign aid.

But in many cases federal courts have not stopped the president outright -- tentatively allowing the mass firing of thousands of government employees, greenlighting a historic federal buyout, and, for now, allowing the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development. The Department of Education and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau are also undergoing massive staffing reductions as judges actively consider the legality of the Trump administration's cuts.

The president's supporters have decried the litigation as a "judicial coup," while those opposing his policies have praised judges for serving as a check against the administration. But the seemingly constant conflict between the Trump administration and the judiciary could risk permanent damage to the separation of powers at the heart of the Constitution, some judges have warned.

"Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around," wrote federal Judge Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee who rebuked the Trump administration's inaction after it was ordered to facilitate the return of a man from a Salvadoran prison.

In the first hundred days since Trump took office, lawyers challenging his actions in court alleged that his administration violated court orders at least six times, according to court records reviewed by ABC News.

While no judge has held members of the Trump administration in contempt of court, two federal judges have sharply rebuked the government for acting in "bad faith" during ongoing lawsuits. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg -- who heard arguments over the deportation of two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act -- an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- ultimately determined the Trump administration likely violated his order by failing to return the migrants to the United States.

An appeals court temporarily blocked Judge Boasberg from beginning the process of contempt proceedings, but his most recent ruling invoked the words of former Chief Justice John Marshall to describe the stakes of the Trump administration's actions.

"The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders -- especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely 'annul the judgments of the courts of the United States' would not just 'destroy the rights acquired under those judgments'; it would make 'a solemn mockery' of 'the Constitution itself,'" Boasberg wrote.

Lawyers representing the Trump administration have argued that Judge Boasberg’s order fell outside his jurisdiction because the flights in question had left U.S. airspace, and have insisted that a federal judge should not dictate U.S. foreign policy.

The Trump administration has also faced legal challenges for its refusal to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native living in Maryland, to the United States after he was mistakenly deported to his home country despite an order barring his deportation there due to fear of persecution.

The administration has so far declined to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite the Supreme Court ordering his release, though administration officials have complied with a lower court’s order to provide regular updates about him.

The administration has rebutted orders to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite the Supreme Court ordering them to facilitate his release.

Judge Wilkinson, in the meantime, has condemned the Trump administration's attempt to send alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison.

"The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order," he wrote. "This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."

In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 65% of respondents said Trump's administration is trying to avoid complying with federal court orders, and 62% said they don't think his administration respects the rule of law.

With the Trump administration just 100 days in, most lawsuits have not made their way through the appeals process to the Supreme Court -- but the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to block some court orders on an emergency basis.

Those appeals have led to some losses for the Trump administration -- among them a 5-4 Supreme Court decision ordering the Trump administration to unfreeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funds for work that aid groups have already completed on the government's behalf.

On the flip side, the Supreme Court -- citing largely technical reasons -- handed the Trump administration a series of temporary wins, including vacating an order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. In that case, the justices opted to throw out the case because the case was filed in the wrong court, declining to weigh in on the merits of the issue.

The Supreme Court also handed the Trump administration a temporary win by blocking a lower court's ruling that barred the Trump administration from firing thousands of probationary government employees without cause. The district judge who blocked the firings slammed the Trump administration for using a "sham" and "gimmick" to fire thousands of federal workers.

"I just want to say it is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that's a lie," U.S. District Judge William Alsup said. "That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements."

But the Supreme Court vacated his order because the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit -- a group of unions and interest groups -- lacked the legal standing to bring the lawsuit.

Over the next month, the Supreme Court is set to hold oral arguments for the first time in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, which confers American citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents' immigration or citizenship status.

The Trump administration also asked the Supreme Court to take up a legal challenge to the Pentagon's transgender service ban after three judges blocked it from taking effect.

Despite President Trump's vow to restore free speech and end censorship, his administration has faced multiple lawsuits challenging his actions on the grounds they violate the First Amendment.

Four law firms have sued the Trump administration after they were targeted for their past work, with each firm arguing the Trump administration unlawfully retaliated against them and violated their First Amendment rights. Judges have temporarily blocked the Trump administration from targeting Susman Godfrey LLP, Jenner & Block LLP, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and Perkins Coie LLP.

"The framers of our Constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power," U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said regarding the order targeting Susman Godfrey LLP.

At least nine law firms have already acquiesced to the Trump administration's demands, agreeing to donate a total of $940 million in legal services to promote causes supported by the president.

After the Trump administration attempted to freeze more than $2 billion dollars in federal funding to Harvard University, the country's oldest school cited the First Amendment in their lawsuit challenging the funding freeze, arguing the "threat of additional funding cuts will chill Harvard's exercise of its First Amendment rights." More than two in three Americans support Harvard in their ongoing dispute with the Trump administration, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.

"Harvard will be unable to make decisions regarding its faculty hiring, academic programs, student admissions, and other core academic matters without fear that those decisions will run afoul of government censors' views on acceptable levels of ideological or viewpoint diversity on campus," Harvard’s lawyers argued.

President Donald Trump holds an executive order he just signed during the inaugural parade, in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

At least nine current or recent students have challenged the Trump administration's attempt to revoke their visas or green cards, with several alleging they were targeted for their outspoken support of Palestinians. The Trump administration's policy of revoking student visas marks the government's most aggressive approach in more than two decades and the first time students have been targeted over their speech, according to immigration attorney Renata Castro.

"The government is looking at speech -- the exercise of free speech -- and using that to dig into perceived immigration violations so that they can revoke student visas," Castro said.

The Trump administration also invoked a rarely used law -- 8 U.S.C. § 237 (a)(4)(C)(i) -- to justify removing noncitizens such as Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was a prominent figure during student protests at Columbia, because he and others allegedly harm U.S. foreign policy.

According to an analysis of past immigration cases conducted by political scientists Graeme Blair and David Hausman, the United States had only used that provision as a basis to remove a noncitizen two times in the last 25 years.

"The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent," Khalil wrote in a public letter last month from an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. "At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all."

Earlier this month, an immigration judge ruled that Khalil can be deported on the grounds that he threatens U.S. foreign policy. While he remained in ICE detention and prepared an appeal, Khalil’s wife gave birth to their child last week.

StupendousMan1995 on April 29th, 2025 at 18:37 UTC »

"It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals," U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, said of Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. "There are moments in the world's history when people look back and ask, 'Where were the lawyers, where were the judges?' In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable. I refuse to let that beacon go dark today."...

New_Housing785 on April 29th, 2025 at 18:30 UTC »

They lose greater than 90% of the lawsuits too and that was when they had competent lawyers and some sort of legal justification.

Flash_ina_pan on April 29th, 2025 at 18:30 UTC »

Ffs "unprecedented legal blitz" maybe if they didn't break the law with astounding frequency we wouldn't be here.