Federal judges have found the Trump administration noncompliant in 31 separate lawsuits. More than 250 individual immigration cases have produced the same finding. Courts have ordered. The administration has ignored.
The violations aren’t close calls. Judges found the White House deported accused gang members to a notorious Salvadoran prison after being ordered not to. It withheld billions in foreign aid that Congress had appropriated. It kept immigrants locked up past court-ordered release dates. When a judge ruled that denying detainees bond hearings was unconstitutional, a top DOJ official declared the ruling wasn’t binding — and the administration kept doing it anyway.
There’s a word for this. It’s not a constitutional crisis, not a separation-of-powers dispute, not a clash of co-equal branches working out their differences. It’s a president deciding that court orders apply to other people.
The courts were supposed to be the check. The one that didn’t depend on Congress acting, or elections, or public pressure. A judge rules, the executive complies — that’s the deal. It’s held for 235 years because every administration, no matter how much it disagreed with a ruling, understood that the alternative was something the country couldn’t come back from easily.
This administration doesn’t comply. And so far, nothing has stopped it.
When the executive branch stops obeying courts, the courts stop being courts. What’s left isn’t a constitutional system. It’s just power.
Sources: Fortune