Trump's 100 days: Inside Massachusetts-led fights in the courts
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President Trump's first 100 days are a case study in how a flood of executive actions meant to remake a nation can slow to a trickle in the courts.
- Depending on where you stand, you can partly thank (or blame) Massachusetts residents and their attorneys.
The big picture: Federal courts are wading through hundreds of lawsuits challenging Trump's various executive orders.
- Questions about alleged constitutional violations — including civil rights violations against members of marginalized groups — have created a bottleneck for the administration's efforts to swiftly shrink and overhaul the government, legal experts say.
The latest: Trump plans to mark his 100 days in office with an executive order identifying "sanctuary cities" — which would probably include the Boston area — and another order that would "strengthen and unleash law enforcement to pursue criminals," the Guardian reported.
Reality check: If previous lawsuits are any indication, Massachusetts officials and attorneys will probably challenge those orders in court.
- That doesn't mean Trump's challengers will prevail, but it may stem the flow of his agenda, legal experts say.
By the numbers: Trump filed more than 139 executive orders in his first 100 days, more than any other president.
- Those orders have been met with hundreds of lawsuits — more than 50 class-action or group lawsuits challenging the orders and related policies on immigration alone.
👶🏽 Birthright citizenship: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in May related to a lawsuit challenging Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of noncitizen parents and undocumented immigrants.
- Court rulings have blocked the order, but Trump attorneys want the Supreme Court to let it proceed and apply to everyone except individuals named in the lawsuits and living in states challenging the order, like Massachusetts.
- It's already rare for the nation's highest court to take up a fast-moving case, based on an emergency petition, especially after oral arguments typically end in April, says Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
🛩️ Passport policy: A lawsuit over the feds' denial of X-marked passports has led to a victory for six nonbinary and transgender plaintiffs, but not for all transgender travelers.
- Judge Julia Kobick in Boston ordered the government to issue X-marked passports to six plaintiffs, including three from Massachusetts.
- She declined to order the government to delay implementing its new passport policy, but the reason lies in the legal mechanisms used to request those changes, not necessarily on the merits of the passport policy.
🎓 Student visas: A wave of student visa revocations nationwide was met with dozens of lawsuits alleging the students' due process rights were violated.
- The government has since restored some student visa statuses temporarily, including that of an MIT senior represented by Kerry Doyle. (A renowned Boston-area immigration attorney, Doyle was appointed an immigration judge under former President Biden — and recently fired by Trump.)
Yes, but: The government's hasn't reversed course in its efforts to deport international students who expressed pro-Palestinian sentiments.
- In Rümeysa Öztürk's case, government attorneys continue to resist efforts to move the Tufts international student from a Louisiana detention center to take part in her lawsuit against federal immigration authorities in Vermont.