The Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in New York City. (Photo: iStock.com/Mariakray)
U.S. federal courts have provided significant opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and humanitarian protection-related policies during its second term. The courts' role as de facto policymaker has been rising for many years: As Congress has largely declined to pass new legislation overhauling the immigration system, the executive branch under presidents of both parties has reinterpreted and stretched existing law, leaving the courts as the ultimate arbiters.
Recent developments represent a new chapter in that history. The federal courts’ role has increased as the Trump administration has relied on novel interpretations of little-used and sometimes ancient legal provisions to achieve its goal of deporting 1 million people annually. Instead of litigation-proofing its efforts, this approach has brought the administration head-to-head with federal courts, where some judges seem keen to express their disapproval with strong, sometimes poetic language, as if writing for the historical record.
While many of the administration’s signature policies have been allowed to proceed, the courts have stepped in to limit or outright block others. Two specific efforts, which are now a year old, illustrate the dynamic. In March 2025, the administration invoked two obscure provisions to carry out quick deportations. One was a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which allows the State Department to revoke legal status and deport noncitizens whose actions are deemed to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” The provision was used to target student activists opposed to the war in Gaza, including Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. In the second case, the administration tapped the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a measure not used since World War II, to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Both approaches, which sparked significant public attention, were quickly challenged in courts, with litigation on both ongoing as of this writing. Yet in practice, the efforts have so far failed to bear significant fruit for the administration: None of the international students and scholars who lost their status under the INA provision have so far been deported, although some appear to have left on their own accord; meanwhile, only one group of 137 Venezuelans was ever deported under the Alien Enemies Act, and there are pending court orders to return them.
Several other notable efforts have proceeded on a similar—if somewhat more convoluted—path. For instance, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has run into legal barriers in seeking to terminate various Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations. Federal judges have stalled the executive branch’s efforts to end the deportation protections and work authorization conveyed under TPS to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including Haitians and Syrians. Courts have also halted the expanded use of expedited removal, a fast-track deportations process typically reserved for recent arrivals near the border.
They have furthermore thrown a wrench into Trump administration efforts to:
In perhaps the highest-profile immigration-related court standoff, regarding the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the administration ultimately complied with a court order to facilitate his return to the United States. Despite continuing efforts to remove him, as of this writing Abrego Garcia remained in the United States and was not in detention.
Litigation in many of these areas is still ongoing, and in some instances—including on TPS and birthright citizenship—will be considered by the Supreme Court in the coming weeks. Yet the courts have clearly imposed hurdles for some policy changes, either by slowing them down or halting them entirely. In many cases, judges have voiced disdain for the administration’s legal and enforcement tactics, with tensions brimming between administration lawyers and federal judges.
Even if the administration’s overarching legal strategy to increase deportations is eventually unsuccessful in the courts, its unconventional efforts have had impacts on many noncitizens, their families, and communities. Prolonged detention and lack of due process, even for small numbers of individuals, has stoked a widespread climate of fear, affecting how many members of immigrant communities live their daily lives.
This article provides a brief overview of Trump immigration policies challenged in the courts. It focuses on the high-profile cases against foreign students and the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as emblematic of the broader judicial pushback.
Targeting Students on Foreign Policy Grounds
In March 2025, the administration began targeting lawfully present international students and scholars as part of its broader goal to increase deportations. The administration began a program called the Student Criminal Alien Initiative that used the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) to vet 1.3 million international students for criminal records, including minor infractions such as traffic violations, while also targeting students for arrest based on other grounds.
The arrest of Khalil, a lawful permanent resident, marked the highest-profile arrest, using a rarely used Cold War-era provision of the INA: 237(a)(4)(C)(i). This provision allows the secretary of state to deem noncitizens deportable if their “presence and activities in the United States the secretary of state has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Outwardly, the administration asserted that the students supported terrorism, as demonstrated by their pro-Palestinian writings or protests, and therefore raised foreign policy concerns. However, internal government memos acknowledged that those arguments were likely to face scrutiny on account of First Amendment protections.
This was the first use of this provision since a 1995 case involving Mario Ruiz Massieu, a former deputy attorney general of Mexico who was arrested at Newark International Airport with thousands of undeclared U.S. dollars. Then Secretary of State Warren Christopher sought to have him deported under the provision. In response, Ruiz Massieu challenged the constitutionality of the provision. The late Maryanne Trump Barry—a federal judge and the sister of President Donald Trump—ruled the provision unconstitutional for being too vague and on the “nondelegation doctrine,” which forbids Congress from giving “too much” leeway to the executive branch. An appeals court overruled that decision, not on constitutionality, but on the ground that Ruiz Massieu’s case needed to go through the immigration courts. In the meantime, the government added a different provision of the INA for removing Ruiz Massieu, but the case was never resolved due to his suicide, leaving the constitutional issue open. However, Judge Barry’s ruling remains the most extensive constitutional examination of the provision.
The Trump administration established the basis for using the provision under two executive orders, one aimed at combatting antisemitism and another directing the secretary of state to “champion core American interests.” As part of its “catch and revoke” policy, the administration revoked visas and arrested students and scholars such as Khalil who were active in opposing Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Khalil, a green-card holder, was subjected to the provision, although the administration also revoked up to 8,000 student visas. It is unclear how many visas were revoked under the INA provision versus based on NCIC hits.
Invoking 237(a)(4)(C)(i) did not prove effective for quick deportations. Court proceedings have unfolded differently for various international students who faced high-profile arrests. In the case of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student who was arrested after writing an op-ed calling on her university to divest from Israel amid the conflict in Gaza, her removal proceedings were terminated by an immigration judge in February. Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent resident who had been active in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and then was arrested at his naturalization interview, also had his removal proceedings terminated in February after the government failed to certify a document submitted as evidence for the use of the INA authority.
Khalil’s case, meanwhile, remains ongoing in federal and immigration courts. A judge blocked his deportation under the foreign policy ground but the government later added a different ground for his removal, alleging he failed to disclose information on his green-card application. Khalil in early March appealed the immigration court charges and there is currently a bar on his detention or deportation.
In addition to the individual cases, the American Association of University Professors brought a case (AAUP v. Rubio) challenging the government’s use of the INA provision. In September 2025, U.S. District Judge William Young determined that the usage violated students’ free speech rights, stressing that noncitizens are entitled to constitutional protections, even as guests. He termed his opinion the most crucial he has delivered in the 30 years since President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the federal bench.
Terminating Student Records
Also using the NCIC database results, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without warning terminated the records of at least 4,700 students in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a government database that lists the status of international students and their dependents. Terminating someone’s SEVIS account can cause them to lose work authorization, be barred from re-entering the United States after a trip abroad, and prompt an ICE investigation that could lead to their removal.
As with its invocation of the INA provision, the administration was largely unsuccessful in increasing deportations by removing students’ SEVIS records. The terminations sparked more than 100 lawsuits, resulting in restraining orders issued by judges nationwide. Met with this backlash, the administration restored all the terminated accounts in April 2025, and some students who had left the country returned. Still, in the days following, ICE released a memo outlining broad authority for immigration officials to terminate an account; as of this writing, it was unclear if more records had been terminated.
All the same, some individuals voluntarily left the United States after their visa had been revoked or their SEVIS account was deleted. It is unclear how many did so.
Labeling Some Venezuelans “Alien Enemies”
Also in March 2025, the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which allows for the detention and deportation of “natives, citizens, denizens, subjects of [a] hostile nation.” Unlike with the foreign policy provision, which had been rarely used but nonetheless has a basis in immigration law, the Alien Enemies Act had never before been used for immigration enforcement. Its three other uses in U.S. history were all during wartime: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.
In invoking this authority, Trump claimed that Tren de Aragua was “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) quickly filed a lawsuit to block use of the law. As the lawsuit was being filed, the administration was teeing up deportation flights. In a whirlwind weekend session, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a written emergency order blocking DHS from using the Alien Enemies Act and ordered any planes that had left to return. However, 137 men deported under the Alien Enemies Act were already on their way to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) mega-prison.
An appeals court upheld Boasberg’s block, and the Supreme Court—without ruling on the merits of the use of the Alien Enemies Act—held that noncitizens detained under the act could legally challenge their detention in the jurisdiction where they were being detained, requiring that the administration issue a notice to detainees and allow them to seek a hearing. After non-English speaking detainees in the United States received notices in English with no instructions on how to ask for a hearing, the ACLU filed emergency petitions and the Supreme Court responded by blocking the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for these specific detainees.
The Supreme Court sent the case for a full merits review back to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and in September a three-judge appellate panel blocked the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act, finding there was no “invasion or predatory incursion.” This was the first appellate opinion directly rejecting the administration’s invocation of the law. The administration subsequently requested review by the full appeals court, which heard the case in January; a decision was pending as of this writing.
While the question of using the Alien Enemies Act for deportations traveled up and down the courts, its prior usage on the men already sent to CECOT continued to face litigation. In July, as part of a prisoner swap, the Venezuelan men detained at CECOT were sent back to their home country. In December, Boasberg ruled that they had been denied due process and gave the administration until early January to develop a plan for their return. Upon receiving no such plan, on February 12 the judge ordered the administration to facilitate the return of the 137 Venezuelans so that they may have their cases heard in court; as of this writing it was unclear how the administration was complying.
Other Trump Changes Checked by the Courts
Beyond the Alien Enemies Act and focus on international students, the courts have pushed back on many other major immigration policy changes of this administration. At the same time, the Trump administration has succeeded in some areas, including with the termination of TPS for Afghans and Cameroonians. Nevertheless, legal opposition has often resulted in lengthy court battles that have led to start-and-stop initiatives and long pauses while requiring significant government resources.
For example, as one of his first actions in office, Trump attempted to expand expedited removal, a fast-track deportation mechanism that allows individual immigration agents to bypass the immigration courts and order a person removed. This authority has traditionally been used for migrants apprehended within 100 miles of any U.S. border and who have been in the country for 14 days or less. The administration sought to expand this policy nationwide and apply it to anyone in the country less than two years. Critics, who argue that the expansion is unfair and denies due process, quickly challenged it. The litigation in the case, Make the Road New York v. Noem, is ongoing, but implementation of the expanded policy remains blocked in court.
Additionally, the administration faced a setback in late February, when Judge Brian E. Murphy, a federal district judge in Massachusetts, found its policy on third-country removals unlawful in D.V.D v. DHS, and claimed that individuals need “meaningful notice” to be able to challenge their removal to a country to which they have no ties. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit blocked that ruling and allowed third-country deportations to continue, at least while it considers the case.
The courts have also halted DHS actions that would expose large numbers of noncitizens to immigration enforcement. For example, the administration has sought to end TPS for nationals of 13 countries, resulting in various legal challenges. Efforts to end TPS for Haitians, which would affect nearly 331,000 recipients, was blocked by the courts in February in the case Lesly Miot et al v. Trump. Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a sharply worded opinion that found it “substantially likely” that DHS’s decision to terminate TPS was racially motivated. An appeals court turned down the administration’s request to pause the ruling, and in mid-March the Supreme Court agreed to take up the Haitian TPS case.
The courts also have intervened in the mandatory detention policy that went into effect in July 2025, which effectively made every noncitizen who had never been lawfully admitted (regardless of their current status or criminal record) subject to detention without bond—a stark contrast to decades of regular practice and legal interpretation allowing release on bond. Following implementation of this policy, federal courts began receiving a flurry of habeas corpus petitions from individuals challenging their detention. In fact, partly due to the mandatory detention mandate, more than 18,000 habeas petitions challenging noncitizens’ detention have been filed during the second Trump term, more than the last three administrations combined. The influx in challenges has strained the courts, with a federal judge in Georgia calling it “an administrative judicial emergency.”
Across the country, judges have overwhelmingly ruled against the mandatory detention policy. An investigation by Politico found that 360 judges rejected mandatory detention in more than 3,000 cases and just 27 judges backed it in 130 cases. Nevertheless, in early February, the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the policy, handing an important win to the administration. In practice, this only applies to detainees in this circuit (which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), although a disproportionate number of detainees from across the United States are sent to facilities in those states. It is likely that more litigation on the matter is yet to come.
Importantly, courts have also temporarily paused Trump’s day-one executive order ending automatic birthright citizenship, which if enacted would result in an average of 255,000 babies annually lacking U.S. citizenship at birth, according to Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on April 1.
Judges: Policymakers of Last Resort?
To be sure, the pattern of sweeping executive action followed quickly by litigation is a familiar one. With Congress largely paralyzed on systemic immigration reform for close to four decades, most immigration policies have been set through executive orders and agency directives and then ended up in the courts, which have thus ultimately been the arbiters of much policy. This pattern has been in overdrive in the first year of the second Trump term, given the flurry of executive actions, resulting in many victories but also many losses, especially when the administration has relied on novel strategies and arcane tools to increase deportations.
Combined with legal disputes on non-immigration policy matters, this has seemingly created an unprecedented strain between the administration and the courts. Senior administration officials, including the president, have verbally attacked judges by name, and many federal judges have issued sharply worded criticism of the administration. The dynamic has also led to judge-against-judge conflict between the federal judicial branch and the immigration courts, an administrative body that sits within the Justice Department. In one instance, the top U.S. immigration judge, Teresa Riley, issued guidance suggesting that immigration judges were not bound by federal court rulings, specifically regarding the ability to detain noncitizens without bond.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, in West Virginia, said the government had repeatedly denied constitutional rights to immigrant detainees, “incredulously assert[ing] that the federal district courts do not have jurisdiction, that petitioners cannot raise due process violations, and that the government has authority to mandatorily and indefinitely detain noncitizens in the local jail. The government is wrong,” he said.
And in an escalation between the federal courts and the executive branch, Laura Provinzino, a federal judge in Minnesota, held government lawyer Matthew Isihara in civil contempt for failing to have a detainee’s documents returned in a timely manner after release, fining him $500 per day the documents were not returned. The stress was palpable elsewhere in Minnesota in February, when an ICE lawyer detailed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office told a judge during a hearing, “I wish you would hold me in contempt, your Honor, so I can have a full 24 hours of sleep… This system sucks. This job sucks. I am trying with every breath I have so that I can get you what you need.” Elsewhere, Justice Department lawyers have admitted to judges they were unable defend certain noncitizens’ detention.
Even as the win-loss count for the administration’s immigration agenda is still being tallied in the courts, these policy changes have had drastic impacts on countless individuals, even in litigation where the government has ultimately lost. Prolonged and wrongful detention, interrupted education, the threat of deportation to a far-off country, and uncertainty that has spread even to green-card holders and other legally present noncitizens have all contributed to a climate of fear that has been felt across immigrant homes and communities. It seems likely that stoking this fear is a goal of the administration in and of itself, as an effort to encourage people to leave on their own account.
The authors thank Emilie Folsom for her research assistance.
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