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President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda is hitting repeated roadblocks in Washington, D.C., federal court, where judges have halted major policies — fueling a growing clash over whether the judiciary is checking executive power or overstepping into it.
The rulings have halted key parts of Trump’s agenda on immigration, policing and federal authority, intensifying debate over whether courts are acting as a constitutional check or obstructing elected leadership.
Here are some of the biggest court clashes Trump is facing in D.C. federal court.
Alien Enemies Act: A centuries-old statute becomes the focus of a modern fight
One of the biggest fights is also one of the earliest lawsuits filed against the Trump administration in D.C. federal court — centered on the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime law, to deport certain migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
Civil rights groups and immigration advocates have argued the Trump administration is stretching the law beyond its intended use case, including the three previous times it was used in U.S. history — most recently, during World War II. The Trump administration has defended the move as a lawful exercise of executive authority over national security and immigration enforcement.
The case quickly landed in D.C. federal court and has since moved up on appeal, with higher courts now weighing the scope of the president’s authority under the centuries-old statute. The outcome could have sweeping implications for how rarely used emergency powers are applied in modern immigration policy.
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The scope of federal power over states and localities has also been tested. Courts have imposed limits on Trump’s efforts to assert control over National Guard units, raising federalism concerns about the balance between state and federal authority.
The standoff began in August 2025. Trump moved to expand federal control over policing in Washington, D.C., including deploying National Guard troops to respond to crime.
A related lawsuit, District of Columbia v. Trump, challenges what city officials describe as an unprecedented federal intrusion into local policing. The case remains a key test of presidential authority over the nation’s capital.
Protected status for Haitian migrants: Temporary or ‘de facto amnesty’?
The Supreme Court agreed to hear a pair of appeals from the Trump administration seeking to immediately halt Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for Haitian migrants. Haitians were first granted TPS status in 2010 after a devastating earthquake. Previously, a lower court judge in D.C., U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, had blocked the Trump administration from lifting the TPS designation.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the high court to take up the broader issue of whether the Trump administration can revoke TPS protections for other migrants living in the U.S. — citing the Justice Department’s appeal of a similar case centered on TPS protections for Syrian migrants that was kicked to the high court earlier this year.
“Unless the court resolves the merits of these challenges — issues that have now been ventilated in courts nationwide — this unsustainable cycle will repeat again and again, spawning more competing rulings and competing views of what to make of this court’s interim orders,” Sauer said last week. “This court should break that cycle.”
The appeal comes as the Trump administration has sought to wind down most TPS designations, arguing the programs have been extended for too long under Democratic presidents.
“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago,” said then-spokesperson for DHS Tricia McLaughlin. “It was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”
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USAID: Judges pump the brakes on agency cuts
Early in the term, the administration’s effort to rapidly scale back the U.S. Agency for International Development was halted by a federal judge, who blocked mass leave orders and the dismantling of the agency’s workforce.
The Supreme Court eventually intervened in the case. Last March, the high court denied the Trump administration’s request to block a lower court’s order for the administration to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign aid money for previously completed projects, and leaving to the lower court judge the details of how those contracts should be paid out. That suit was eventually appealed to a higher court, where litigation remains pending.
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The independence of the Federal Reserve is also an issue before the courts.
Lawyers for the Trump administration asked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg earlier this month to reconsider an earlier order that quashed grand jury subpoenas of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, appearing to make good on a vow from U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro to appeal the order to a higher court.
In the Justice Department’s motion for reconsideration that was submitted Monday, prosecutors argued that the court “applied an incorrect legal standard, erred with respect to certain facts, and overlooked other relevant facts.”
They argued that a subpoena should be allowed when there is even a “reasonable possibility” that the category of materials the government seeks will produce information “relevant to the general subject of the grand jury’s investigation,” and even where a subpoena recipient “proposes a plausible theory of an ulterior motive.”
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a separate case, Trump v. Cook, earlier this year. That case centered on whether Trump has the power to fire Lisa Cook from the Fed’s board of governors — without notice and largely without the ability for courts to challenge the “for cause” provision underpinning her removal.
Cook remains in her position for now, following an order from U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb.
Meanwhile, White House officials have railed against the “activist” judges who they have accused of overstepping their agenda or acting with a political agenda to halt or pause Trump’s policies from taking force.
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