The Trump administration has suffered a succession of legal defeats over the past week on subjects ranging from blocking diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, withholding funding from “sanctuary” jurisdictions and blocking a proof-of-citizenship requirement for the federal voter registration form.
Newsweek has contacted the White House press office for comment on Friday via email outside of regular office hours.
Why It Matters
Since his inauguration on January 20, Trump has signed a succession of executive orders including declaring a national emergency on the southern border over illegal immigration, ordering federal agencies to scrap DEI initiatives and penalizing schools that allow transgender individuals to participate in girls’ sports.
With the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives under narrow Republican control, the courts have emerged as the main block to Trump’s agenda, infuriating the president and his allies like Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk.
Judges have recently blocked or suspended efforts by the Trump administration to ban transgender people from the military, abolish the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and to place restrictions on birthright citizenship.
Sanctury Jurisdiction Judgement
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that an executive order issued by Trump to block sanctuary jurisdictions, mostly Democratic controlled areas that refuse to fully cooperate with immigration enforcement, from receiving federal funds was likely unconstitutional.
Orrick, who was appointed by then-President Barack Obama to the Northern District of California bench, said the administration could not enforce this executive order in the 16 cities and counties which brought the case, including San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Seattle.
In response to the lawsuit, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said the jurisdictions lacked legal standing and that they didn’t lose any funds yet, The Hill reported.
The judge concluded the order could violate the Fifth Amendment by being unconstitutionally vague, the 10th Amendment by requiring local officials to enforce federal migration law and Congress’ “power of the purse” over federal spending.
Federal Election Law
Thursday also saw a judge block the Trump administration’s plan to add a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.
In March, the president issued the executive order, but a coalition of groups including the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the League of United Latin American Citizens filed a legal challenge arguing it was unconstitutional.
Washington-based U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, appointed by GOP icon former President Ronald Reagan and elevated under former President Bill Clinton, supported this argument, saying the U.S. Constitution makes the election regulation a responsibility of the individual states and Congress rather than the president.
The judge said the government’s legal team had “almost no defense of the President’s order on the merits” and issued a preliminary injunction while the whole case is played out.
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
On Thursday, New Hampshire based U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty ruled that a Trump administration directive which allows federal funding to be cut from public schools that operate DEI programs could violate teachers First Amendment rights and may also be unconstitutionally vague.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Education Association.
According to McCafferty, an Obama appointee, a letter sent to schools in April “does not even define what a ‘DEI program’ is.”
“A professor runs afoul of the 2025 Letter if she expresses the view in her teaching that structural racism exists in America, but does not do so if she denies structural racism’s existence. That is textbook viewpoint discrimination,” she added.
States were given until the end of Thursday to submit certification of their schools’ compliance, with some indicating they wouldn’t comply with the order, the Associated Press reported.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has warned of potential funding cuts if states do not return the form by Friday.
Separated in Maryland, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee in 2019, ordered the directive to be postponed after concluding it could force teachers to select between “being injured through suppressing their speech or through facing enforcement for exercising their constitutional rights.” The case was brought by the American Federation of Teachers, a major union.
A preliminary injunction against the directive’s enforcement was also issued by a judge in Washington D.C. in response to a case brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
El Salvador Deportation
Gallagher ruled on Wednesday the administration had broken a 2019 settlement agreement by deporting a Venezuelan man to El Salvador in March.
She instructed the Trump administration to make a “good faith request” to the government of El Salvador for the return of the 20-year-old man, identified only as Cristian in court papers, to the United States. At the time of his deportation, Cristian had a pending U.S. asylum application.
“Standing by and taking no action is not facilitation. In prior cases involving wrongfully removed individuals, courts have ordered, and the government has taken, affirmative steps toward facilitating return,” the judge wrote.
In response, DOJ attorneys said Gallagher doesn’t have the jurisdiction to review Cristian’s removal or compel his return, the AP reported. The attorneys also denied his deportation violated the 2019 settlement.
Gallagher also cited the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March.
Another federal judge ordered the government to facilitate his return to the U.S., but thus far it has declined to do so. The Trump administration claims Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang and insists he won’t be allowed back into the country. Abrego Garcia and his legal team denied he’s a member of MS-13, but two judges, in separate rulings, concluded he was, based on confidential information provided to the court. He was shielded from deportation to El Salvador because he said he’d be targeted by MS-13’s gangland rivals.
Abrego Garcia, who lived in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in what the Trump administration lawyers said was an “administrative error.” His family denies he has any ties to gangs and said he has no criminal record in the U.S., although his wife accused him of domestic violence, obtaining a restraining order against him. They have since been reconciled.
