Federal judges around the country have raised alarms about the Trump administration’s failure to follow court orders in individual immigration cases, and an Associated Press review of court records found similar problems in a wider set of lawsuits dating back to the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The AP said district court judges ruled the Republican administration was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits after February 2025, spanning disputes involving federal funding cuts, mass layoffs, deportations, and immigration-related practices. The review also pointed to what it described as an extraordinary volume of noncompliance: judges, it said, recently highlighted more than 250 instances in individual immigration petitions, including cases involving failures to return property and instances where immigrants were kept in custody beyond court-ordered release dates.
While the AP review focused on a broader litigation pattern, it also described the effect of the administration’s conduct on multiple groups. The AP said the people and institutions claiming harm included immigrants, nonprofits, and journalists, underscoring that the consequences were not limited to courtroom paperwork.
In describing the record of noncompliance, the AP cited examples that included rulings tied to the deportation of accused gang members to a prison in El Salvador, the withholding of billions of dollars in foreign aid, and failures to restore programming at the Voice of America. The AP said those cases traced to the first few months of the new administration, but it also reported that judges continued to find violations afterward, including in two cases in April.
The AP said that in about a third of the 31 lawsuits, Trump officials eventually backed down. Legal experts cited by the AP argued that even when the government reverses course later, the repeated failure to treat court orders as binding can strain the constitutional system that relies on checks and balances.
David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University, warned that the rule-of-law consequences can extend beyond any individual case. In a quoted warning, Super said: “The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country.” He added that “When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country.”
The AP also reported that higher courts often limited remedies or sided with the administration’s positions. According to the AP, in 15 of the 31 lawsuits it reviewed, an appellate court or the Supreme Court allowed the administration’s underlying policy, limited the district court’s efforts to correct or punish the noncompliance, or did both—outcomes the AP said critics characterized as excusing failures to comply.
Will Chamberlain, senior counsel with the conservative legal advocacy group The Article III Project, told the AP that lower court judges were “overreaching” and said Trump officials were “generally complying, appealing and winning.” The AP reported Chamberlain saying: “If they were defying orders left and right, they’d be losing them.”
Critics of that approach pointed to concerns raised by Supreme Court justices about how the court handles repeated noncompliance. The AP said Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent in June, joined by the court’s two other liberal justices, saying: “This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last.” Sotomayor added that “Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”
In response to the allegations, the AP reported that White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said district court judges were making “unlawful” rulings against Trump officials. The AP quoted Jackson saying in a written statement that “President Trump’s entire Administration is lawfully implementing the America First agenda he was elected to enact.”
The AP also described how Justice Department attorneys disputed accusations in court filings, generally contesting that the government was failing to comply. The AP said lawyers argued over the meaning of words in court orders, cited favorable appellate decisions, and asserted that they were acting outside the scope of the courts’ orders.