The courts are braking the efforts of President Donald Trump to quickly cut and transform the federal government.
In his first weeks in office, Trump has signed more than 50 executive orders aimed at remodeling the Government, from addressing the citizenship of birth rights to change the way in which transgender prisoners are housed. Government agencies have also used orders to try to freeze federal funds throughout the country and offer purchases to most government employees.
The avalanche of orders has led more than two dozen demands to date, and a series of judicial decisions that stop, at least temporarily, some of Trump’s actions. At least three of those decisions were launched on Thursday.
And on Thursday night, a couple of unions sued the Trump administration for their efforts to dismantle the US agency for international development.
Here is a look at the cases of the courts that have been stopped:
DOGE
The retirees and union members presented a legal challenge to the decision of the Treasury Department to allow the employees of the Efficient Department of the Government of Elon Musk, or Doge, access to the massive system of payments and charges of the federal government, and Personal data housed in it.
Arguing that the measure violated federal privacy laws, they are looking for an order that prohibits Doge from accessing the data and requiring the return of any data that has already been harvested. The Department of Justice agreed to restrict some access to the systems waiting for the results of a complete hearing on the matter on February 24.
In a related case this week, a group of union members filed a lawsuit that sought to block the Dux created by Trump to access confidential information from the Labor Department.
Another challenge is in process: a coalition of 12 states announced plans on Thursday to file a demand on Dege’s access to the treasure system.
Government purchases
As part of Trump’s effort to reduce the size of the Federal Work Force, the United States Personnel Management Office recently announced a massive “deferred resignation” program that would allow workers to resign now, but receive a payment until September . The deadline declared to accept the offer was Thursday night, and a superior administration official said that day that 60,000 people had accepted.
Labor unions for federal workers demanded to stop the program, arguing that the Trump administration has no legal authority to offer such purchases.
A federal judge in Boston blocked the government on Thursday to implement purchases in federal agencies until at least Monday, when you will have a hearing on the subject.
A consequence of the judge’s order is that it also extended the amount of time that workers must respond to the supply offer.
“We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline for more federal workers who refuse to appear to the office can take the administration to this very generous offer, unique in life,” said the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt. NBC News in a statement.
Citizenship of Birth Law
One of Trump’s most controversial executive orders was one called “protecting the meaning and value of US citizenship”, which seeks to restrict citizenship of birth rights. It seeks to limit this citizenship to people who have at least one father who is an American or permanent resident, and states that the born of parents who are legally, but temporarily, will no longer guarantee citizens automatically, including people people , including those with high -qualification work visas and student visas.
The order is being challenged in a series of demands that have been submitted throughout the country. Federal judges in Maryland and the state of Washington issued preliminary ordered this week throughout the country that block the order to take effect.
In his ruling on Thursday, the American district judge John C. Cugenour wrote: “Citizenship by birth is an unequivocal constitutional right.”
The judge in Seattle wrote: “The president cannot change, limit or qualify this constitutional right through an executive order.”
The Department of Justice appealed Seattle’s decision on Thursday night.
Frozen financing
A couple of federal judges temporarily blocked a freezing of federal aid funds led by the Trump administration in response to their executive orders.
Last week, a memorandum of the Office of Management and Memo of Budget ordered federal agencies that “temporarily pause all activities related to the obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance, and other activities of relevant agencies that may be involved by executive orders “related to issues such as issues of foreign aid and DEI programs.
The memorandum said the pause would allow the administration to review which programs are “consistent” with the Trump agenda.
The vaguely written memorandum was withdrawn after a generalized confusion about what help would stop, and the reports of people and organizations cannot access the systems to receive federal help.
In a Friday ruling, the American district judge of Rhode Island, John J. McConnell, signed a temporary restriction order after the memorandum retired, and pointed out that Leavitt had tweeted the public that “this is not a termination of the freezing of federal funds “. It is simply a termination of the OMB note. “
The judge discovered that White House actions seemed to violate the law. “The Federal Law specifies how the Executive should act if he believes that the assignments are inconsistent with the president’s priorities, he must ask Congress, not act unilaterally,” he wrote.
Before us, Loren Alikhan district judge issued her ruling in the separate case of Washington, DC on Monday, said that Even after the memorandum retired, there were “people who still have problems accessing financing platforms.”
“That tells me that the note continues to do a job,” he said.
Transgender internal
Another of Trump’s orders attacked transgender inmates, saying that the Federal Prison Office should now ensure that “men are not detained in women’s prisons.”
That led to two demands filed on behalf of four transgender prisoners who were scheduled to be transferred to the facilities of the men. They argued that the order constituted a cruel and unusual punishment because they would have a serious risk of violence and sexual aggression in an installation for men.
Two judges blocked inmates to be transferred.
In a lawsuit that involved three of the prisoners, the American district judge Royce Lambeth in Washington, DC, concluded that “the public interest in seeing the defendants relocated immediately in the male facilities is light in the best case” .
Lamberth said that “by the admission of the defendants, there are only sixteen transgender women of men to women housed in female penitentiaries, including the plaintiffs.” He said that the government had not even claimed that the three prisoners “present any threat to inmates who are housed with them, or that this threat cannot be managed locally by prison staff.”
