White House Urges Supreme Court to ‘Rein In’ Judges Blocking Trump’s Policies

U.S. district judges have been entering injunctions against various policies, prompting pushback from the White House and the president.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a briefing at the White House on March 19, 2025. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

The White House on March 19 urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take action with regard to judges that have been blocking actions by President Donald Trump and his administration.

“It’s incumbent upon the Supreme Court to rein in these activist judges,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a briefing in Washington. “These partisan activists are undermining the judicial branch by doing so.”

Leavitt singled out U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who recently blocked the president from deporting noncitizens who are allegedly part of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Trump has repeatedly criticized judges who have entered injunctions and restraining orders against his agenda. This week, he accused Boasberg of wanting to “assume the role of president” and said that Boasberg and other judges should be impeached.

That appeared to prompt a response from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said in a rare statement that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

Litigants should instead utilize the appellate process, or appeal decisions and wait for higher courts to act, Roberts said.

“The president has made it clear that he believes this judge in this case should be impeached and he has also made it clear that he has great respect for the Chief Justice John Roberts,” Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday.

The judges in the cases are “acting as partisan activists from the bench,” she said. “They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow-walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable.”

The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment.

Boasberg over the weekend ordered the Trump administration not to deport any suspected Tren de Aragua gang members unless they were otherwise subject to removal.

One plane carrying illegal immigrants took off after the order, U.S. officials later said, but those people had gone through immigration court and been ordered removed by judges.

Two other planes had already exited U.S. airspace before the order was handed down, Robert Cerna, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, told Boasberg.

The Trump administration maintains it followed the order. Lawyers in the case representing some Venezuelan nationals say they did not.

Boasberg has scheduled a hearing for Friday to delve further into the matter.

Other recent rulings against the government include orders to reinstate nearly 25,000 workers, an order blocking the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and an order pausing Trump’s directive to oust service members who identify as transgender.

The Trump administration has been appealing the rulings.

“White House counsel and the Department of Justice are working on this. They’re appealing these cases and we will continue to use the full weight of the White House counsel’s office and the president’s team of lawyers to fight this in court because we know we will win even if we have to go all the way to the Supreme Court,” Leavitt said.

The Department of Justice in a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia asked the court to reassign the deportation case to another judge, alleging that Boasberg has employed “unusual and improper procedures.”

The court is set to hold oral arguments in the appeal on Monday.

Several Supreme Court justices have said in recent years that the high court may need to address the increasing prevalence of nationwide injunctions, or broad blocks of policy imposed by U.S. district judges.

“They appear to be inconsistent with longstanding limits on equitable relief and the power of Article III courts. If their popularity continues, this court must address their legality,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in an opinion in 2018 concurring with a ruling that saw the Supreme Court uphold the first Trump administration’s ban on travel from some countries after lower courts entered injunctions against the restrictions.

Some Republican lawmakers have introduced articles of impeachment against at least five judges who have ruled against the government, including Boasberg. None have yet been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Federal judges serve until they retire, die, or are impeached. The House introduces articles of impeachment, which are adopted by a simple majority of those present at the time of the vote.

The U.S. Senate then decides whether to convict. Conviction requires a two-thirds majority of senators who are voting.

Republicans control both chambers but have only 53 senators in the Senate, which is a body of 100.

“The American people voted for President Trump’s agenda. Not Judge James Boasberg’s,” Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), a co-sponsor of the articles against Boasberg, said on social media platform X. “We must hold these activist judges responsible for their executive overreach.”