Trump presidency in 100 days keeps courts busy with deportation, transgender and tariff lawsuits
CBC
Donald Trump's presidency is 100 days old on Wednesday, and its bold and often controversial moves have spawned more than 200 lawsuits, according to online publications tracking policy and legal issues arising from the new administration.
Trump's first presidency, between 2017 and 2021, was also marked by litigation compared to previous administrations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) once sent out a press release marking its 400th legal filing against that Trump administration; the ACLU said by comparison it had challenged the George W. Bush administration in its first term a total of 13 times.
The Trump administration is also making use again of the shadow docket, or emergency docket, which is when Supreme Court justices are asked to address an issue on an expedited basis without oral arguments. According to Supreme Court historian Steve Vladeck, who wrote a book on the topic, the Trump administration made much more frequent use of this avenue in its first term than the Bush, Joe Biden or Barack Obama presidencies.
What's different in this Trump presidency is how the White House is reacting to even just temporary setbacks from judges' orders. According to an ABC News report, the Trump administration has been accused in court of violating orders six times, usually in cases concerning deportations.
As well, Attorney General Pam Bondi has reacted to losses with alarmist language, branding judges who have made rulings against the White House as being "rogue" or "radical." Meanwhile, Trump adviser Stephen Miller has been accused by a former Bush administration lawyer of "grossly misrepresenting" a signed Supreme Court order in the much-publicized Kilmar Abrego Garcia case as a victory for the government, when the ruling actually called on it to facilitate the deported man's return to the U.S.
Comments from Trump, White House officials and congressional Republicans raising the spectre of impeaching judges as a result of adverse rulings in the last three months led to a rare rebuke from Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.
Here is a look at some of the major themes and cases developing so far.
The Trump administration case that will be first up for oral arguments before the Supreme Court is set for May 15 and concerns an executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship.
Trump directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the U.S. who do not have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
Challengers argued that Trump's order violates a right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment that provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.
Should the government prevail, the U.S. would not necessarily be an outlier among advanced nations. Britain and Australia in the 1980s modified their laws to prevent so-called birth tourism, requiring a parent to be a citizen or permanent resident in order for a newborn to qualify for citizenship.
Overall, it is estimated by various think-tanks that millions of people currently living in the U.S. are considered unauthorized immigrants, and many from that group had children of their own. The issue has taken on salience with reports that U.S.-born children have been part of at least one deportation of a family to Honduras — and raises the question of whether those children would have a right to citizenship should they return to the U.S. in the future.
Just under one-third of the total caseload involves issues related to immigration, with questions being raised whether many U.S. residents have been given due process before being deported.
The U.S. Supreme Court on April 19 temporarily barred Trump's administration from deporting Venezuelan men in immigration custody after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices.
