Within the first month of President Donald Trump’s second term, he has already encountered more than 80 sometimes overlapping lawsuits challenging his actions on spending, federal employment decisions, immigration, and other issues.
Some of these issues are expected to reach the Supreme Court and could result in major precedents that clarify the scope of executive authority.
Most of the lawsuits have targeted various executive orders that Trump signed after entering office, but some have been initiated in response to standalone firings of public employees, such as the former chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Here is a breakdown of the cases that have resulted in court orders halting the administration’s actions through a series of decisions by federal judges. The administration has already appealed multiple decisions.
Trump has said his order is consistent with the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause and federal immigration law, while various states and organizations have said he is in violation of both.
The relevant portion of the amendment reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The focus will likely be on whether children born in the United States to illegal immigrants fit the designation “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
At least four judges have issued preliminary injunctions blocking this order.
Maryland
Washington, D.C.
- Feb. 6: Judge John Coughenour issues nationwide preliminary injunction.
- Feb. 6: Trump administration files notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
- Feb. 7: Judge stays case amid pending appeal.
New Hampshire Case
The Trump administration is accused of violating multiple laws and exceeding its authority under laws that govern the handling of personal information.
The states also claimed that the administration is usurping legislative authority because DOGE is attempting to block payments appropriated by Congress to states.
The administration, meanwhile, said the states lacked standing, failed to show violations of multiple laws, and were attempting to challenge “the Executive Branch’s ability to exercise politically accountable oversight of agency activities.”
Washington, D.C.
- Feb. 6: Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issues an order based on an agreement between the parties to limit access to certain people/read-only.
New York
The administration responded by arguing that Trump could fire Dellinger at will and pointed to Article II of the Constitution, which vests executive power with the president.
A federal district judge in Washington allowed Dellinger to remain in his position.
Washington, D.C.
- Feb. 10: District of Columbia Judge Amy Berman Jackson issues administrative stay allowing Hampton Dellinger to continue to serve as special counsel of the Office of Special Counsel.
- Feb. 10: Trump administration files notice of appeal to U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
- Feb. 12: D.C. Circuit rejects request for stay of Jackson’s order.
- Feb. 12: Jackson grants a temporary restraining order and removes administrative stay.
- Feb. 13: Jackson denies the administration’s motion to stay her temporary restraining order.
A judge in Washington quickly issued an administrative stay, and OMB responded by rescinding the memo.
Judges in Washington and Rhode Island have issued additional orders, stating that the Trump administration has continued to freeze the disbursement of funds even after the memo was rescinded and courts prohibited it.
So far, a group of states and nonprofits have joined lawsuits against the funding freeze, alleging that the administration exceeded its authority in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and various provisions of the Constitution.
Rhode Island
- Jan. 27: OMB issues a memo directing a spending freeze based on various executive orders.
- Jan. 29: OMB rescinds memo; White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posts on social media platform X that the federal funding freeze hasn’t been rescinded. “The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”
- Jan. 31: Judge John J. McConnell issues a temporary restraining order.
- Feb. 6: McConnell extends restraining order.
- Feb. 10: McConnell issues an order granting a motion to enforce his temporary restraining order, stating that the administration wasn’t complying.
- Feb. 10: Trump administration files Notice of Appeal to U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
- Feb. 11: First Circuit denies Trump administration’s request for an administrative stay on the lower court’s ruling.
- Feb. 13: First Circuit grants administration’s motion to voluntarily dismiss appeal.
Washington, D.C.
- Jan. 27: OMB issues a memo directing a spending freeze based on various executive orders.
- Jan. 29: OMB rescinds memo; White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posts on X that the federal funding freeze hasn’t been rescinded. “The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”
- Jan. 28: Judge Loren AliKhan issues an administrative stay.
- Feb. 3: AliKhan issues a temporary restraining order, directing the administration not to freeze funding.
More specifically, they said the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act by acting arbitrarily and capriciously and by obligating payments to employees that Congress hadn’t appropriated.
The administration responded in part by arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing, meaning they had not sustained the type of direct harm that would give them a legal basis for suing over the buyouts.
The administration also argued that granting the plaintiffs’ request to extend the deadline for responding to the buyout offer would exacerbate any purported harms by allowing more participation and inquiry about the program.
Massachusetts
Trump attempted to dissolve the agency and place employees on leave, prompting a lawsuit from the American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees.
The groups allege that Trump wasn’t faithfully executing the laws as required by the Constitution and was violating the Constitution’s separation of powers by usurping legislative authority from Congress.
The Trump administration responded in part by saying the court lacked jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claims and that the president’s powers in foreign affairs are “vast and generally unreviewable.”
Washington, D.C.
- Feb. 7: Judge Carl Nichols temporarily blocks, via a temporary restraining order, USAID employees from being placed on leave.
- Feb. 13: Nichols extends temporary restraining order by a week and says that no employees shall be “involuntarily” evacuated from their host countries.
According to the lawsuit, the Office of Personnel Management lacked that authority while the Health and Human Services Department, also named as a defendant, violated the Administrative Procedure Act by removing the webpages and datasets.
The Trump administration responded that the DFA lacked standing and was attempting to challenge actions that weren’t subject to the Administrative Procedure Act.
Washington, D.C.
The states argued that NIH’s notice regarding a change in the rate was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act and violated an appropriations law.
In its notice on Feb. 7, NIH said $9 billion was allocated in fiscal year 2023 to overhead expenses through its indirect cost rate, while the average indirect cost rate has averaged between 27 to 28 percent over time.
“NIH is obligated to carefully steward grant awards to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life,” the agency said when announcing the new 15 percent ceiling.
Massachusetts
The president also ordered that the Bureau of Prisons “ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
Three anonymous prisoners who said they were transgender sued the Trump administration, arguing that it was discriminating on the basis of sex.
They also said the administration was violating the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by withholding “medically necessary health care.”
In response, the administration said the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in their claims and that the Prison Litigation Reform Act prevented a federal judge from reviewing the case.
Washington, D.C.
- Feb. 4: Judge Royce Lamberth issues order blocking part of a Trump executive order directing the transfer of males who identify as transgender women inmates to male prisons and restricting funding “for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The administration suggested the lawsuit was premature and that the plaintiffs sought overbroad relief, but a judge granted them a nationwide, temporary restraining order on Feb. 13. The administration also denied discriminating on the basis of sex.
“Medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex,” one of Trump’s orders read.
Maryland
Among other things, the plaintiffs alleged that the Trump administration would cause reputational harm by disseminating the list of employees. They also said the administration violated the First Amendment by purportedly preparing to retaliate over their perceived political affiliation.
Washington, D.C.
- Feb. 6: Cases consolidated.
- Feb. 7: Judge Jia Cobb signs order in both cases based on an agreement between parties that the DOJ will not disseminate a list of FBI employees who worked on the Jan. 6 investigation.
