Trump Administration Non-Adherence to Court Orders

Tracking the Trump administration’s non-adherence to the judiciary’s orders.

RDP will continue to track non-adherence and enforcement efforts as they occur. Please contact us with additional info at [email protected]. Last updated: March 27, 2025.

On January 27, the Trump administration issued a memo ordering a freeze of federal grants and loans, which crippled critical services across the country. Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge John McConnell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island have since blocked the spending pause from going into effect, but there are still numerous examples of shuttered programs and services. We are tracking notable examples of non-adherence. (See also this resource from American Bridge.)

We will also track what efforts the courts take to enforce their orders. As the Federal Judicial Center notes, “the contempt power has remained an important mechanism by which the federal judiciary protects its dignity and authority.” But this power must be wielded lest judicial dignity and authority disappear.

General Updates

• January 31: From Judge McConnell’s order: “Defendants shall not pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate Defendants’ compliance with awards and obligations to provide federal financial assistance to the States, and Defendants shall not impede the States’ access to such awards and obligations, except on the basis of the applicable authorizing statutes, regulations, and terms.”

• February 3: From Judge AliKhan’s order: “Defendants are enjoined from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the directives in OMB Memorandum M-25-13 with respect to the disbursement of Federal funds under all open awards.”

• February 7 : The coalition of states that filed their lawsuit in Rhode Island filed a motion asking Judge McConnell to enforce his restraining order against the spending freeze, writing, “Despite the Court’s order, Defendants [the Trump Administration] have failed to resume disbursing federal funds in multiple respects.” 
• February 10: Judge McConnell agreed with the states that the Trump administration was violating his order and again ordered that the administration comply.
• February 13: U.S. Judge Amir Ali of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia blocked the Trump administration spending freeze and ordered the administration to restore funds to foreign aid contractors, citing the “extraordinary harm caused by the broad-based halt to foreign aid.”
  • From Judge Ali’s order: “It is further hereby ORDERED that nothing in this order shall prohibit the Restrained Defendants from enforcing the terms of contracts or grants.”
• February 25: Judge AliKhan issued a preliminary injunction extending the pause on the Trump administration’s spending freeze enacted in her original court order, citing the administration’s continued violation of the first court order.
  • From Judge AliKhan’s order: “Defendants cannot convincingly tell this court that there is no longer a need for injunctive relief after they were found to be in violation of another court’s order. For all these reasons, the court remains unpersuaded by Defendants’ mootness arguments. To be sure, the government is normally entitled to a presumption of good faith on voluntary cessation […] But the court will not confer that presumption when the government says one thing while expressly doing another.”
• February 26: Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked Judge Ali’s order to release nearly $2 billion in funds for foreign aid projects, giving the State Department and USAID contractors until noon on Friday to respond to the Trump administration’s request to lift the order.

• March 12: A lawsuit filed by the Climate United Fund claims that Citibank cut off access to nearly $7 billion in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds on February 18, despite a temporary restraining order issued by Judge McConnell barring freezes on IRA funds. 
  • In a video message, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the termination of $20 billion in climate change grants allocated under the IRA. The decision came just one day before a DC district judge was scheduled to hold a hearing on Climate United’s lawsuit.
  • Citibank filed an opposition to Climate United’s lawsuit, revealing that the EPA and Treasury instructed and the FBI ”recommended” the bank freeze the funds.
    • “Citibank has been instructed by EPA and the Department of Treasury to pause all further disbursements from GGRF accounts, including those held by Climate United, until further notice.”
    • “… the FBI recommended placing a 30-day administrative freeze on the accounts in light of ‘credible information’ of possible criminal violations”.
  • In a court filing, Climate United requested a new temporary restraining order to block the EPA from terminating IRA grants, following its agreement to postpone the scheduled TRO hearing by 24 hours. During this delay, Zeldin announced the termination of the grants. Such an action was a shocking violation of accustomed litigation practice.

• March 13: Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for DC ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate thousands of fired federal workers at the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Veteran Affairs.

• March 13: Judge James Bredar of the U.S. District Court of Maryland ordered the rehiring of thousands of probationary employees fired under “Reductions in Force” or RIFs. 
  • The ruling impacts probationary workers at the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, as well as U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the General Service Administration and the Small Business Administration.  

• March 14: In response to the court orders reinstating federal workers, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the orders “unconstitutional” and undermined the authority of district court judges.
  • Leavitt: “… our lawyers at the federal government, who believe this injunction is entirely unconstitutional, and it is. For anybody who has a basic understanding of the law, you cannot have a low level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the President of the United States…”

• March 26: The Department of Housing and Urban Development informed reinstated probationary employees that they would not receive back pay for the period they were laid off, despite federal law mandating that fired employees are entitled to such compensation. HUD also did not mention the reinstatement of workers’ health insurance.
  • This decision comes after two federal district court judges ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of federal workers who had been unlawfully dismissed.
  • Other agencies subject to the court orders have confirmed they will be issuing back pay.

Trump administration officials discussing deportation orders are furthering the Constitutional crisis

• Trump (source: Truth Social)
  • “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

• Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary
  • Axios: “A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.”

• Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General
  • Fox News (2:20): Asked if deportation flights will continue, Bondi responds “Absolutely.”
    • (1:57): “[Judge Boasberg] is attempting to meddle in national security and foreign affairs, and he can’t do it. What he’s done is an intrusion on the president’s authority. You know, this one federal judge again thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot”.

• Tom Homan, Trump administration “border czar”
  • X: “We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming.”

• Abhishek Kambli, Deputy Associate Attorney General 
  • Politico: “‘We believe that there was no order given’ orally, Kambli said. ‘An injunction is not ordered until it’s in the written filing.’”

• Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff
  • The Hill: “‘It is without doubt the most unlawful order a judge has issued in our lifetimes,’ deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters Monday. ‘A district court judge has no authority to direct the national security operations of the executive branch,’ he continued. ‘The president has operated the absolute apex of his constitutional authority.’”

Deportations/Immigration Enforcement

• March 15: President Trump ordered the immediate deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan nationals, invoking the Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged gang members.

• March 16: U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to stop the deportation of Venezuelan nationals: “‘Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished,’ Boasberg announced. ‘Make sure it’s complied with immediately.’”

• March 16: Despite Judge Boasberg’s order, the Trump administration did not return flights to the US, a clear act of defiance against the court.
  • WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt:
    • NBC News: “‘The president invoked this authority to deport nearly 300 of them who are now in El Salvador, where they will be behind bars where they belong, rather than roaming freely in American communities,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Fox News’ ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’”
    • Axios: “A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.”
  • Tom Homan, Trump administration “border czar”: “We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming.”
  • Conservative Notre Dame Law professor Samuel Bray, an expert on judicial power, observed that the Administration is unequivocally wrong: “Put differently, the argument attributed to the government officers is that the district court’s order could control their conduct only inside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. That is wrong, and I see no way to avoid the conclusion that this is an open and shut case of contempt, which should be treated accordingly.”

• March 16: Despite holding a valid visa and a court order pausing the deportation, a Brown University professor was deported without a clear explanation from the Trump administration.

• March 17: The DOJ filed an appeal to the DC District Court of Appeals asking that the case involving Judge Boasberg be reassigned to another district court judge.

• March 19: The DOJ filed an emergency motion to stay the March 18th order from Judge Boasberg to provide details regarding the timing of the flights deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador.
  • The DOJ also filed a motion in the DC District Court of Appeals requesting the court to overturn Judge Boasberg’s TRO blocking the deportations.

• March 19: The DC District Court of Appeals scheduled oral arguments for March 24th to decide whether to block Judge Boasberg’s TRO.

• March 20: Judge Boasberg said the government “evaded its obligations” to report details about the timing of the March 15th deportations and ordered the Trump administration to:
  1. “Submit a sworn declaration by a person with direct involvement in the Cabinet-level discussions regarding invocation of the state-secrets privilege.”
  2. “Submit a declaration indicating whether or not the Government is invoking the privilege.” 
  3. File a brief explaining why administration officials were not in violation of the March 15th temporary restraining order that ordered the planes carrying Venezuelan nationals to be returned to the U.S.

• March 25: Plainclothes DHS agents arrested a Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk and illegally sent her to a Louisiana ICE facility. The transfer to Louisiana was carried out despite U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ordering Ozturk not be moved outside Massachusetts.
  • From Judge Talwani’s order: “Accordingly, and unless otherwise ordered by the Court, [Ozturk] shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move.”
  • As of March 27, the ICE detainee locator places Ozturk at a Louisiana processing center.

Emergency Management

• February 10: According to NBC News, on February 10 a “senior official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency” (FEMA) ordered a funding freeze “for a wide array of grant programs.” The order to continue the illegal funding freeze came hours after Judge McConnell ordered—for a second time—that the administration resume funding for grant programs.
• February 12: The Trump administration pulled more than $80 million from New York City’s bank accounts that had already been disbursed, paid by FEMA for the purpose of sheltering immigrants. City Comptroller Brad Lander said he had never seen anything like it: “I find it terrifying that the federal government had the ability to seize money from us in a way that we did not know before.”

Climate Funding

• February 5: Trump’s EPA is refusing to disperse already-awarded grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, in apparent defiance of Judge AliKhan and Judge McConnell’s orders.
• February 6: Solar For All, a $7 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) program to deliver solar to low-income and disadvantaged households, remains frozen. February 7: A climate pollution reduction project in Ohio, estimated to create 200 jobs, remains in limbo after the freeze paused a $139 million grant. 
• February 7: Rhode Island was unable to access $125 million in IRA awards as late as the Friday evening.
• February 8: Nevada clean energy programs have been locked out of hundreds of millions in IRA funding.

Foreign Aid

• February 5: Hundreds of organizations across sub-Saharan Africa reported shutting down their programs which relied on PEPFAR for HIV treatments, despite a memo from the State Department clarifying an exemption from the foreign aid pause.
• February 9: Global clinical trials reliant on USAID funding have stopped work and left thousands of people without care.
• February 10: USAID workers told a judge that the administration was continuing to tear down the agency in defiance of a court order, including failing to reinstate employees that the judge had ordered must be reinstated.
• February 11: NOTUS reported that, despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserting that foreign aid groups that received stop-work orders could obtain waivers, few waivers had been issued, and many groups that obtained waivers still had significant trouble accessing funding.
• February 11: The Trump administration’s aid freeze became visibly fatal. A 71-year-old woman refugee from Myanmar, living in a displacement camp in Thailand, died four days after getting discharged from a USAID-funded hospital. The facility had received a stop-work order.
• February 12: Groups suing to end the foreign aid freeze said that the Trump administration was “accelerating their terminations of contracts and suspensions of grants of USAID and State Department partners.”
• February 19: USAID employees and aid organizations reliant on its funding say that the agency’s payment system is still nonfunctional. The funding freeze continues despite a court order from U.S. District Judge Amir Ali restoring payments to organizations.
  • Two nonprofit organizations impacted by the freeze have requested that Judge Ali hold Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Peter Marocco, the State Department’s foreign aid assistance director, in civil contempt for failing to comply with the court’s order.
• February 26: According to NBC News, the “Trump administration said in a court filing Wednesday it cannot comply with a federal judge’s order to release foreign aid funding by midnight, despite being directed to do so almost two weeks ago.” The administration expected it could free up $15 million by the midnight deadline, far from the $2 billion needed to be in compliance with Judge Amir Ali’s court order.

Community Health Centers

• February 4: Sixteen of Virginia’s community health centers have been unable to access federal grant money used to pay staff. The freeze caused several closures and resulted in patient transfers to open locations.
• February 9: Health centers in California and Virginia received notifications of the termination of federal grants related to HIV prevention care.

Electric Vehicle Programs

• February 5: The Washington State Department of Transportation said money for bridge repairs and electric charger projects have been blocked by the spending freeze.
• February 6: The Department of Transportation sent out a memo suspending its National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, stopping $5 billion in funding for charging station installations from reaching states.

Head Start

• February 4: Head Start programs across the country are still waiting for federal funding, despite promises from the Trump administration that the funding freeze would not affect the program.

Non-Profits

• January 31: Several Vermont non-profit organizations were unable to pay staff or were forced to layoff employees because federal funds were inaccessible.
• January 31: Non-profit organizations in West Virginia announced layoffs and scaled back operations as a result of the spending freeze.

Farmers

• February 10: After spending millions up front for planting and renewable energy projects, farmers have been left on the hook after the freeze halted USDA loans and grants guaranteed to cover the costs.

Government Employees

• February 10: Unions representing federal workers filed a notice of non-compliance, alleging that employees placed on administrative leave have yet to be reinstated to their positions, despite a DC District judge’s order issued the previous week.

Health Research

• February 10: According to Popular Information, the Trump administration is still maintaining the funding freeze at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with almost all NIH grants remaining frozen.
  • February 12: An internal NIH memo, also obtained by Popular Information, acknowledged that the previous freeze was illegal and violated a temporary restraining order, resuming grant funding for the time being.
• February 18: Health and Human Services officials have placed an indefinite hold on new submissions to the Federal Register, halting the legally required process that allows NIH to secure its funding. This pause on new submissions serves as a way to bypass Judge AliKhan’s court order that blocked the Trump administration’s spending freeze.