For several months, President Donald Trump has been at war with the federal courts as partisan district court judges issue a seemingly unending stream of preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders (TROs) impeding the president’s agenda. Within the past two days, the mission to “Make America Great Again” suffered not just one judicial setback, but four. Here is The Washington Stand’s breakdown of the four recent court actions curtailing the president from doing what he was elected to do.

Mandatory Voter ID Struck Down

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order Thursday blocking the president’s own order that would have required proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote and required voter registration authorities to verify the U.S. citizenship of certain individuals registering to vote. Kollar-Kotelly wrote in an accompanying memorandum opinion explaining the basis for the order that she was not considering “whether the President’s executive order reflects good policy choices or even whether the policies it describes would be legal if implemented,” but was instead asking “whether the President can dictate those policies unilaterally, or whether that power is reserved to Congress and the States alone.”

“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States — not the President — with the authority to regulate federal elections,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote, noting that the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which mandates many of the same provisions as the president’s order, has already been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives. Nevertheless, she insisted that “no statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter said, “Judge Kollar-Kotelly rightfully points out our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States with the responsibility of overseeing federal elections. What she doesn’t seem to grasp is that Congress already passed legislation requiring the federal government, including the Executive branch, to work with the states to maintain accurate voter registration lists.” He added, “I can’t think of a better way for the president to comply with the law than by protecting American voters from having their vote diluted by noncitizens.”

The case originated with a number of organizations — including the Democratic National Committee (DNC), League of United Latin American Citizens, League of Women Voters Education Fund, and others — suing to block the president’s executive order “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” In the order, the president wrote, “Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic. The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election.”

He continued, “Under the Constitution, State governments must safeguard American elections in compliance with Federal laws that protect Americans’ voting rights and guard against dilution by illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error.” He added, “Yet the United States has not adequately enforced Federal election requirements that, for example, prohibit States from counting ballots received after Election Day or prohibit non-citizens from registering to vote.”

Funding for ‘Sanctuary Cities’ Reinstated

Obama-appointed Judge William Orrick III of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California also issued an order Thursday, blocking the Trump administration from freezing funding for “sanctuary cities” illegally harboring and shielding illegal immigrants. Early in his second term, the president issued executive orders demanding that federal funds be withheld from “sanctuary” jurisdictions, cities, towns, and counties. San Francisco led 15 other cities and counties in a lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration from defunding them.

In his short order, Orrick claimed that the funding freeze “violate[s] the Constitution’s separation of powers principles and the Spending Clause” and “also violate the Fifth Amendment to the extent they are unconstitutionally vague and violate due process.” The judge added that the orders to freeze funding likely “also violate the Tenth Amendment because they impose coercive condition intended to commandeer local officials into enforcing federal immigration practices and law.” The judge did not acknowledge that local officials are legally bound to collaborate with the federal government in “enforcing federal immigration practices and law.” He did, however, claim that the funding freeze is “likely arbitrary and capricious,” thus violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

Therefore, Orrick ordered that the Trump administration be restrained from enforcing the funding freeze, effectively allowing “sanctuary” jurisdictions to continue benefitting from federal taxpayer dollars while simultaneously ignoring and flouting federal immigration law. The judge explained the brevity of his order by promising to “enter an order that

discusses the issues and my reasoning in more detail at a later date,” but said that the “the exigencies it addresses” require immediate action.

Another Illegal Immigrant Ordered Un-Deported

In another immigration-related case, Judge Stephanie Gallagher of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, who was appointed by Trump himself during his first term, ordered on Wednesday that a Venezuelan noncitizen who was deported to El Salvador must be returned to the U.S. Gallagher explained that the noncitizen is protected by a 2024 class action settlement barring the deportation of illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied children until their asylum claims are adjudicated. The noncitizen in question is currently 20 years old.

Despite ordering that the noncitizen be returned to the U.S., Gallagher carefully noted that “this is just a breach of contract case,” due to the nature of the 2024 class action settlement. She explained, “It is not a habeas case, or a case assessing the propriety of the government’s recent invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. … At bottom, this case, unlike other cases involving the government’s removal of individuals under the AEA, is a contractual dispute because of the Settlement Agreement.”

The case is closely related to that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador native identified by federal law enforcement as a member of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) criminal gang and foreign terrorist organization who was deported to El Salvador. The controversial case has even garnered the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Garcia’s return to the U.S. However, both the Supreme Court and Gallagher observed that negotiating the return of a deported individual from a foreign nation is a matter of foreign policy and diplomacy and may, in the end, not be effectuated, especially following Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s insistence that he will not return Garcia to the U.S.

Nevertheless, Gallagher claimed that the government has an obligation to at least take steps to negotiate the deportees’ return, no matter how futile the effort may seem. She wrote, “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.”

DEI Goes (Back) to School

In February, Trump’s Department of Education (DOE) sent a letter to schools receiving federal funding and warned that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices must be halted, or else the schools risk losing federal funds and facing civil rights investigations. Judge Landya McCafferty of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire issued an order Thursday barring the Trump administration from enforcing its directive, claiming that the administration “does not even define what a ‘DEI program’ is.” The Obama-appointed judge also alleged that the DOE’s directive may violate the First Amendment rights of teachers, writing, “A professor runs afoul of the 2025 [directive] 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.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon said that the “temporary holds” imposed by judges like McCafferty “are the reason it was so important and remains important for Trump administration officials to act boldly and decisively as early as possible.” She explained, “Doing so allows for the court process to unfold, should constitutional issues arise. We need to pray that justice is swift so that Americans can be unshackled from the progressive policies of past administrations. Congress can also help by codifying as many executive actions as possible.”