Trump flouts lower court rulings in unprecedented display of executive power, and ‘respect for the rule of law is likely to break down’

When a federal judge shot down a Trump administration policy of holding immigrants without bond last December, it seemed like a serious blow to the president’s mass deportation effort. Instead, a top Justice Department official insisted the ruling wasn’t binding, and the administration continued denying detainees around the country a chance for release. By February, the district court judge, Sunshine Sykes, was fed up. Sykes, a nominee of President Joe Biden, accused Trump officials in a ruling that month of seeking “to erode any semblance of separation of powers,” adding that they could “only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist.” Hardly isolated, the case illustrates a broader pattern of defiance of lower court decisions in President Donald Trump’s second term. The failure of Trump officials to follow court orders has been highlighted most notably in individual immigration cases. But a review of hundreds of pages of court records by The Associated Press also shows an extraordinary record of violations in lawsuits over policy changes and other moves. In the second Trump administration’s first 15 months in office, district court judges ruled it was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices, the AP’s review of court records found. That’s about one out of every eight lawsuits in which courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration’s actions. The Republican administration’s power struggle with federal courts — which is testing basic tenets of U.S. democracy — reflects an expansive view of executive authority that has also challenged the independence of federal agencies, a president’s ethical obligations, and the U.S.’s role in the international order. Judges find widespread noncompliance The Trump administration violations in the 31 lawsuits are in addition to more than 250 instances of noncompliance judges h