What to know about the legal challenges to Trump's executive actions

Yahoo

31-01-2025

President Trump's torrent of executive actions has spurred a flood of legal challenges seeking to thwart the president's efforts to reshape U.S. policy in his first days back in the White House.
From Seattle to Boston and Concord, N.H., to Washington, D.C., judges have scheduled hearings in courtrooms across the country for the coming days where they will confront the first major legal battles of the new administration.
The sweeping actions span immigration, gender protections and the functions of the federal bureaucracy. Here's where the legal challenges stand.
Trump's effort to restrict birthright citizenship could set up a major clash at the Supreme Court.
The high court has long interpreted the 14th Amendment to extend citizenship to all people born on U.S. soil with few exceptions, but Trump is making a push to prevent that guarantee from extending to children born to parents without legal status.
Trump's Justice Department has insisted the president's order is consistent with those precedents, latching onto how the Amendment only applies to people 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States.
The order has been met with at least seven separate lawsuits, which all claim it violates the amendment or federal immigration law.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee who oversees one of the cases, called Trump's action a 'blatantly unconstitutional order' as the judge temporarily blocked it at a hearing last week.
Coughenour's order is only temporary. Next week, hearings will continue.
A federal judge in Greenbelt, Md., will hear from CASA Inc. on Wednesday. The following day, Coughenor will hold another hearing in Seattle in the suit brought by four Democratic state attorneys general.
The day after that, a judge in Boston will hear two separate challenges being brought by 18 other Democratic-led states and a group of private organizations. And on Feb. 10, a judge in Concord, N.H. will consider the American Civil Liberties Union's challenge.
When asked on Thursday how the cases might fare once they reach the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointed during his first time, Trump said he was confident the majority of the high court would vote in his favor to uphold the executive order.
Transgender Americans affected by Trump's executive orders barring them from serving openly in the military and being housed in prisons aligned with their gender identities have also taken legal action against the administration.
Two LGBTQ rights groups, on behalf of six active service members and two people seeking enlistment, challenged Trump's directive to deem transgender troops as physically or mentally incapable of service as a violation of the Constitution's equal protection clause.
Separately, an incarcerated transgender woman sued the administration over Trump's order requiring the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house transgender inmates according to their sex at birth and preventing prisoners from accessing gender-affirming medical care.
The transgender woman in that case, identified in court documents under the pseudonym Maria Moe, asked a federal judge Sunday to block the order from taking effect.
The White House budget office earlier this week issued a directive to freeze federal assistance while reviewing whether spending aligns with Trump's agenda, drawing quick legal challenges from potentially affected nonprofits, public health groups and Democratic states.
The nonprofits and public health groups sued first, contending they'd suffer 'imminent injury' should the order stand. On Tuesday, minutes before the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) order was set to go into effect, a federal judge temporarily blocked it.
But the next day, the OMB rescinded the order, via a memo. Then, the White House said that rescission did not actually halt the federal funding freeze. The apparent contradiction created further widespread confusion.
The 22 Democratic states and Washington, D.C. that sued over the funding freeze order — led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, called the policy 'reckless, dangerous, illegal and unconstitutional.'
They argued during a court hearing Wednesday that the order should still be frozen by the courts because the Trump administration said the memo that rescinded the order would not hamper its actual effect – though it remains unclear which federal programs are actually impacted.
A federal judge in Rhode Island overseeing the case signaled he's inclined to freeze the order, despite the order being rescinded. The states submitted a proposed court order Wednesday evening, and the judge gave the Justice Department 24 hours to submit any final opposition.
At least three lawsuits have been filed over Trump's order creating a new class of federal employee, Schedule F, which would allow those workers to be hired and fired with ease like political appointees.
The challenges, brought by federal employee unions and a worker alliance, contend that Trump's order threatens protections given to federal employees by Congress. They see the classification as an attempt to politicize bureaucratic roles. 'This scheme seeks to put politics over professionalism, contrary to the laws and values that have defined our career civil service for more than a century,' lawyers for the American Federation of Government Employees and AFL-CIO wrote in their complaint.
Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, came under legal challenges within minutes of the president taking the oath.
Trump has announced ambitious plans for the new group, led by Space X CEO Elon Musk, to slash trillions in government spending.
Three lawsuits are seeking to stop DOGE's operations over allegations it is required to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which mandates various transparency requirements.
The cases are each led by progressive consumer watchdog Public Citizen, the American Public Health Association and National Security Counselors, a public interest law firm.
Each lawsuit was filed in D.C.'s federal district court and assigned to Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee. The plaintiffs have not yet filed any motion seeking an emergency intervention.
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