Lawsuits Against Trump Actions Could Help Clarify Scope of Executive Power

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a series of executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Jan. 23, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

News Analysis

President Donald Trump’s administration has been hit with a wave of legal challenges responding to executive orders and other actions, teeing up potential Supreme Court decisions that could clarify the scope of executive power.

So far, states and other groups have filed more than 20 lawsuits alleging violations of the Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act, and other laws. It’s unclear how many of them will succeed in the long-run but many have already attained initial successes in blocking the administration, with federal judges across the country issuing injunctions.

“He’s testing to see what works and what doesn’t,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Epoch Times.

Steven Engel, who served in the Department of Justice (DOJ) during Trump’s first term, disagreed.

“I think President Trump came in with a plan and a muscular view of executive authority,” he said. Engel added that he believes some of Trump’s “decisions will lead to cases that better articulate the scope of executive power.”

Perhaps Trump’s most ambitious orders were the ones attempting to freeze wide swaths of government spending and end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, a longstanding practice that the administration says is out of step with the 14th Amendment.

The amendment states in part: “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.”

There have already been three preliminary injunctions issued in response to Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order attempting to restrict birthright citizenship. Experts told The Epoch Times that the issue, and a dispute over Trump firing one of the members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), will likely provoke consideration from the nation’s highest court.

Referring to the birthright citizenship order, Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Joe Luppino-Esposito said: “That’s definitely the one that I think will make it to the Supreme Court because ... that’s not a question that’s come up in a long time, and it’s definitely more unique.”

Immigration

On Feb. 6, a federal judge in Washington accused Trump of trying to change the Constitution via executive order and said a new amendment would be needed to replace how birthright citizenship has typically been granted.

During that hearing, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign argued that the history of the 14th Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark supported the idea that immigrants should have more permanent ties to the nation in order for their kids to receive citizenship. The implications of that 1898 decision have been debated but the court held that the 14th Amendment granted birthright citizenship to a Chinese man whose parents were legally present in the United States.

Trump’s order, signed on Jan. 20, argued that an individual who is born in the United States is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” if that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the country and the individual’s father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of his or her birth.

It further stated that the privilege of U.S. citizenship does not apply to an individual whose mother’s presence was lawful but temporary and whose father was neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident at the time of that individual’s birth.

Rahmani speculated that “even the conservative justices on the Supreme Court will probably reject [the] argument“ that babies born illegally in the United States are not subject to its jurisdiction under the 14th Amendment. ”Maybe with the exception of [Justices Clarence] Thomas or [Samuel] Alito,” he assessed.

Immigration Reform Law Institute Director Chris Hajec told The Epoch Times that the issue offered the Supreme Court the opportunity to affirm what he saw as the true ruling of Wong Kim Ark.

“Under the 14th Amendment, [Wong Kim Ark] conditioned having birthright citizenship on residing here with the permission of the United States,” he said.

Federal Workers

Both Hajec and Rahmani indicated that Trump faces good prospects in lawsuits challenging his other immigration-related executive actions.

The ACLU has worked with multiple groups to sue over Trump’s decision to shut down asylum and expedite deportations. They allege that the administration is violating multiple federal laws, as well as the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process.

Former NLRB Chair Gynne Wilcox alleged that Trump fired her “by late-night email” and violated the National Labor Relations Act by removing her “without purporting to identify any neglect of duty or malfeasance, and without providing notice or a hearing.” Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the board, was appointed by former President Joe Biden and had a five-year term that was set to end in August of 2028, according to her complaint.

The firing could prompt the Supreme Court to reconsider a longstanding precedent in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 decision wherein the court said that presidents did not have the power to remove certain officials for reasons other than what Congress allowed.

The NLRB case is one that is “likely to end up at the Supreme Court and test the court’s willingness to overrule … Humphrey’s Executor,” Catholic University Law Professor Joel Alicea told The Epoch Times. “And if that precedent is overruled, it would be a sea change in American government—the way that the government operates.”

Earlier in the 2024-2025 term, the court declined to hear two challenges to Humphrey’s Executor but the NLRB decision might earn a hearing, Competitive Enterprise Institute attorney Devin Watkins told The Epoch Times.

Trump has also encountered legal backlash for attempting to create a separate category of federal workers whom he can more easily fire. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by unions alleging that Trump’s order establishing that category violated the Administrative Procedures Act and flouted Congress’ intention for civil service protections.

“When establishing hiring principles, Congress determined that most federal government jobs be in the merit-based, competitive service,” a lawsuit from the National Treasury Employees Union read. Trump, meanwhile, has said that federal law allows him to create an exception to competitive hiring rules.

His order, signed on Jan. 20, frames the issue as part of his executive authority under Article II of the Constitution.

“Article II of the United States Constitution vests the President with the sole and exclusive authority over the executive branch, including the authority to manage the Federal workforce to ensure effective execution of Federal law,” his order reads. “A critical aspect of this executive function is the responsibility to maintain professionalism and accountability within the civil service.”

Trump’s order came amid his and others’ allegations that the Department of Justice had been weaponized for political purposes.

Earlier this month, multiple anonymous FBI employees sued the administration over a survey asking about involvement in the investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021. The lawsuit led to an agreement last week in which the DOJ said it would not disseminate the list of individuals who worked on that issue.

The Trump administration will likely see large-scale departures with its sweeping buyout offer to federal employees. Approximately 65,000 federal employees have accepted the offer that ended on Feb. 10, according to the White House.

A federal judge in Boston heard arguments on Feb. 10 about halting this buyout. The court said a previously imposed pause on the buyouts would remain in place until the judge issued another order.

The Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development has also been the subject of a lawsuit. Trump attempted to place the State Department agency’s employees on administrative leave globally but a federal judge in Washington imposed a temporary hold on doing so for around 2,200 employees.

DOGE

Some lawsuits have also arisen in response to employees the administration sought to retain as part of efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Trump created by reorganizing and renaming the United States Digital Service.

Shortly after the order creating DOGE was signed, multiple lawsuits were filed arguing that it was an advisory committee, entailing certain legal requirements, such as providing public notice of DOGE hearings or having a membership with balanced viewpoints, that Trump didn’t follow.

Other lawsuits have raised concerns about the group, which is led by billionaire Elon Musk, accessing data at the Department of Labor and Treasury Department.

Late on Feb. 7, a judge in Washington denied a request for a temporary restraining order on sharing data from the Labor Department. In his order, Judge John Bates stated that “although the Court harbors concerns about defendants’ alleged conduct, it must deny plaintiffs’ motion at this time.”

A separate lawsuit resulted in a Feb. 8 order temporarily blocking most administration officials from accessing sensitive Treasury records. Another hearing is scheduled for Feb. 14.

Following that order, Vice President J.D. Vance criticized judicial control of executive power. “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal … Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he said in a post on social media.

Trump told Fox News on Feb. 9: “I disagree with it 100 percent. I think it’s crazy. We have to solve the efficiency problem.”

Spending

Part of DOGE’s plan for the administration is to enact steep spending cuts, raising questions about how much the executive can limit the disbursement of money appropriated by Congress.

The administration attempted to enact a spending freeze in January related to Trump’s executive orders, with wording clarifying that agencies should pause disbursement of funds “to the extent permissible under applicable law.” The administration quickly encountered legal pushback and a judge entered an administrative stay. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) then rescinded the memo directing that freeze but the White House indicated that some kind of freeze was nonetheless still in place.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Jan. 29 post to social media. “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.”

That post was mentioned by two federal judges who issued temporary restraining orders in Rhode Island, on Jan. 31, and Washington, on Feb. 3. Rhode Island District Judge John McConnell said on Feb. 10 that the administration had violated his Jan. 31 order by continuing to freeze funding.

In Washington, Judge Loren AliKhan stated that the administration’s “actions appear to suffer infirmities of a constitutional magnitude. The appropriation of the government’s resources is reserved for Congress, not the Executive Branch.”

Trump’s DOJ argued on Jan. 30 that the memo “fits comfortably within this Executive Branch practice of short-term delays in order to determine how best to implement programs consistent with the President’s policy objectives and consistent with the underlying law governing each program.”

Watkins said the spending freeze could wind up at the Supreme Court and noted that the OMB memo directed agencies to pause funding as allowed under the law. “There’s a lot of discretion that’s given in [a] variety of grants,” he said. “Without examining each and every one of those grants ... you can’t know whether the pause is lawful or not.”

A group of Democratic attorneys general indicated on Feb. 5 that the ultimate effect of one of the temporary restraining orders meant that Trump couldn’t continue blocking spending for organizations that provide puberty blockers and other gender-related procedures. An LGBT advocacy group is currently attempting to obtain a separate order blocking the administration’s executive order directing that removal.

Zachary Stieber and Bill Pan contributed to this report.