Despite the challenges Donald Trump is facing over impeachment, media bias, and the global trade wars, the greatest hindrance to the president’s agenda in his second term has been a series of preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders (TROs) issued by district court judges. The latest set of court actions have taken aim at the president’s immigration agenda.

Border Patrol Needs Warrants to Arrest Illegal Immigrants

Judge Jennifer Thurston of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday requiring U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) agents to obtain warrants prior to arresting suspected illegal immigrants throughout most of California. The case centered on “Operation Return to Sender,” a USBP initiative targeting alleged drug and human traffickers. USBP agents would “stop, detain, and arrest people” suspected of being illegal immigrants or drug or human traffickers and conduct detentive stops, patrolling major highways and neighborhoods known for high illegal immigrant populations, stopping drivers and seeking proof of citizenship. Most of those arrested were taken into custody after refusing to answer questions or simply walking away from USBP agents.

Thurston, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, ordered, “Border Patrol is enjoined from conducting detentive stops in this District unless, pre-stop, the detaining agent has reasonable suspicion that the person to be stopped is a noncitizen who is present within the United States in violation of U.S. immigration law, as required by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” She further ordered, “Border Patrol is enjoined from effecting warrantless arrests in this District unless, pre-arrest, the arresting agent has probable cause to believe that the noncitizen being arrested is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, as required by 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2).”

Responding to Thurston’s order, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and chief immigration policy mastermind Stephen Miller observed, “It takes days or weeks to obtain a single warrant for a single criminal search. Requiring a warrant for Border Patrol to conduct an interdiction of an illegal alien is an act of legal insurrection against national sovereignty.” He continued, “Never in the history of our country or any country has a criminal judicial warrant been required to stop a foreign trespasser from invading your territory. Congress, indeed, has explicitly EXCLUDED all such procedures for alien removals. This is madness.”

Scott Jennings, a former George W. Bush administration strategist and current political commentator, called Thurston’s injunction “one of the most egregious immigration rulings I’ve ever seen. This is a judicial coup.” In a social media video, he quipped, “This is not how the law works at all, this is not how U.S. federal immigration law works.” Jennings continued, “It’s amazing to me — these judges who are trying to stop the president of the United States from enforcing U.S. immigration law — why are they doing this? It’s judicial tyranny, it’s a judicial coup, the usurping of the president’s Article II powers.” He recommended that the president and his administration “just ignore” Thurston’s injunction.

However, Margot Cleveland, a former law professor and current senior legal correspondent at The Federalist, suggested that much of Thurston’s injunction is actually “consistent with federal law.” She noted that USBP and ICE agents are allowed to make arrests without warrants if there is probable cause or in the case of flight risks but must simply document that an arrested individual is a flight risk. “Lots of screaming is merited by coup by court, but this decision isn’t one meriting meltdown,” Cleveland said. She did also note that Thurston’s requirement that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regularly report every 60 days to non-government lawyers is “problematic.” Cleveland averred that “required reporting is questionable & potentially beyond [the] Court’s authority…”

Trump Can’t Defund Free Lawyers for Illegal Immigrants

In early April, Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a TRO blocking the president from stripping taxpayer funding from lawyers representing illegal immigrant children for free. On Tuesday, Martinez-Olguin followed it up with a preliminary injunction to the same effect. The Mexican-born judge’s TRO expired on April 16 and was followed by proceedings to grant a preliminary injunction.

In February, the Trump administration froze hundreds of millions of dollars that had been given to nonprofit legal firms representing “unaccompanied migrant children” (UACs) in immigration courts at the American taxpayers’ expense. Martinez-Olguin temporarily barred the administration from removing those funds from the immigration firms, and her injunction Tuesday extended that restriction until the case is resolved in court. “This injunction takes effect immediately, replacing the Court’s April 1, 2025 temporary restraining order … and will remain in place until a final judgment on Plaintiffs’ claims,” Martinez-Olguin wrote.

Attorneys for the Trump administration argued that Martinez-Olguin’s management of the case represents an “appearance of bias” due to the fact that she was previously the managing attorney for the lead plaintiff in the case, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto.

Florida Can’t Enforce Federal or State Immigration Laws

Judge Kathleen Williams issued an omnibus order Tuesday barring Florida state or local law enforcement from enforcing state immigration laws and cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement. Florida state law makes illegal entry and reentry into the U.S. a felony and empowers law enforcement agents at the state, county, and municipal level to enforce both federal and state immigration law. Last month, Williams issued a TRO prohibiting Florida law enforcement “officers, agents, employees, attorneys … from enforcing” the state immigration law, which went into effect in January.

Williams’s Tuesday order converted the TRO into a preliminary injunction, claiming that the illegal immigrants who challenged enforcement of the Florida law will “succeed on the merits” of their arguments. The judge claimed that Florida’s immigration law “conflicts with existing federal immigration law and its enforcement” and therefore violates the Supremacy Clause. The preliminary injunction bars “any officer or other personnel within any municipal or county police department within Florida, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or the Florida Highway Patrol, and any other law enforcement officer” from enforcing the state’s immigration laws. Williams also threatened to hold Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) in contempt for writing a letter to law enforcement entities in Florida dismissing Williams’s prior TRO.

In comments to The Washington Stand, constitutional scholar and Article III Project founder Mike Davis castigated federal judges for unlawfully impeding the president in the discharge of his duties. “President Trump won a decisive electoral mandate in November, and leftist radicals are trying to stop his agenda by running to judicial activists,” Davis said. He continued, “These judges are in no way exercising judicial review. They’re instead choosing judicial sabotage. The Supreme Court has allowed this to go on for too long, and the Chief Justice must get his judicial house in order so President Trump can implement his agenda without activist judges trying to derail it.”