The Trump administration has violated court orders in at least 31 lawsuits since February 2025, an Associated Press review of court documents and media reports has found. The noncompliance spans cuts in federal funding, mass layoffs, deportations, and immigration enforcement — and it far exceeds the few isolated violations documented under recent presidents.
Beyond the 31 cases, judges have flagged more than 250 additional violations in individual immigration petitions, ranging from the failure to return property to holding immigrants in custody past court-ordered release dates. While officials eventually backed down in about a third of the lawsuits, the overall pattern is one that legal scholars describe as an assault on the constitutional system of checks and balances.
The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country, said David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University. When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country.
In court filings, Justice Department attorneys have generally disputed accusations of noncompliance, arguing over the meaning of terms in court orders, citing favorable appellate rulings, and asserting that their actions fell outside the scope of the orders. The administration’s political allies have gone further. Vice President JD Vance has suggested the president could ignore court orders, and President Trump and other White House officials have repeatedly attacked federal judges. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson characterized the district court rulings as unlawful and said President Trump’s entire Administration is lawfully implementing the America First agenda he was elected to enact.
The effects have been far-ranging. Among the cases where judges found the White House defied rulings: the deportation of scores of alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador, the withholding of billions of dollars in foreign aid, and the failure to restore programming at the Voice of America. The affected groups include immigrants, nonprofits, and journalists, and new violations have continued to emerge as recently as April 2026.
Higher courts have often sided with the administration. In 15 of the 31 lawsuits the AP reviewed, an appellate court or the Supreme Court either allowed the underlying policy, limited the district court’s ability to enforce compliance, or both. Will Chamberlain, senior counsel with the conservative legal group The Article III Project, argued the lower court rulings reflect overreach and that Trump officials are generally complying, appealing and winning. If they were defying orders left and right, they’d be losing them.
Critics, however, see the higher courts as excusing defiance. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a June 2025 dissent, joined by the court’s two other liberal justices, that the Court’s pattern of granting relief in the face of noncompliance was undermining the judiciary itself.
This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last, Sotomayor wrote. Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.