Below is my column in the New York Post on the first 100 days of the Trump Administration in court. It is too early to handicap many of these lower courts decisions. I have been critical of some of these orders as either premature or unconstitutional. There is a reason for the hyperkinetic pace of the Administration. However, it needs greater focus and discipline in picking cases.
Here is the column:
The first 100 days of the Trump administration have been described in the same way on sites ranging from the ACLU to Vanity Fair: Chaos.
It seems like the Justice Department is battling everywhere on everything at the same time.
It is indeed chaos, but it is not necessarily as random or as reckless as it may seem to the naked eye.
I have been critical of a number of legal moves by the Trump administration, including policies that undermine free speech values. Yet there is a type of legal chaos theory behind all of these actions. In science, chaos theory suggests that, even in a system of seemingly random actions, there can be patterns and interconnections.
The hyperkinetic litigation around the country reflects two realities.
First, Democratic state governments and groups have a massive war chest to challenge any and every new policy of President Trump. In California, the Democrats actually pre-approved a litigation fund before the inauguration to do precisely that.
Second, and more importantly, Trump promised sweeping changes from immigration to transgender policies to education reforms.
If you know that you are going to be challenged, it is better to get into court as soon as possible to move critical cases through the legal system. What you need is finality. Even if you lose cases, you need to know what authority you have.
Immigration wins
This is an administration in a hurry. Trump learned in his first term that you need to move as fast and as far as possible in the first two years of a presidential term.
With the midterm elections looming, Trump knows that reforms may end and investigations and impeachments will begin if the Democrats retake the House in 2026.
Despite some losses, the Justice Department has succeeded generally in reaffirming its authority to seek the reduction of government and to root out waste. It has also made real progress in other areas.
Take the area of greatest success for the Trump administration: Immigration.
One thing that was clearly established in the first 100 days is that the entry of millions of unlawful immigrants was a choice made by the Biden administration and the Democrats. They could have stopped most of these entries at any time, but elected to leave the southern border effectively open for four years as millions poured over.
In a matter of weeks, Trump effectively closed the border. In February, there were just 8,326 southern border encounters, down from 189,913 in February 2024. Daily encounters this week declined 97% from Biden.
As many of us stated during the Biden administration, Democrats could have shut down the border, but clearly did not want to. Now with millions in the country, Democrats are calling for “pathways to citizenship” by arguing that there is no way to process so many illegals allowed in under Biden.
In the meantime, the public overwhelmingly favors deportations and elected Trump on his pledge to carry out such removals. Polling shows that 83% of Americans support deportations of immigrants with violent criminal records and roughly half support mass deportation of all undocumented persons.
A new CBS poll shows that, after the first 100 days, 56 percent approve of President Donald Trump’s “program to find and deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.”
National injunctions
To carry out that policy, Trump is seeking to use new expedited systems. For the worst individuals, he has turned to the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act, a little-used act that presents a series of novel, unresolved questions.
Even with this smaller subset of detainees, individual hearings and appeals could make Biden’s decision to allow millions into the country a permanent reality. Many immigrants have been given initial court dates that extend beyond the Trump term.
Trump also pledged to reduce trade barriers for American exports and he is pushing existing laws to the breaking point on tariffs. He is right on the merits.
Even our closest allies impose unfair barriers to our goods and Trump sought to change the status quo with sweeping tariffs issued under his own authority.
Democrats have challenged that authority in various courts and, again, there are good-faith arguments that must be hashed out in court.
It is too early to tell how successful these cases will prove. However, a district court injunction (or even a dozen injunctions) a crisis does not make.
The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments on limiting the use of national injunctions and some of these district court decisions are highly challengeable on appeal.
There is no question that Trump is moving at a lightning speed and the Justice Department has to move at the same pace as the president.
There is also no question that it would better to slow down to avoid some of the unforced errors in the first 100 days.
However, Trump knows that time is of the essence. If he is going to realign the markets and make progress on issues like deportations, he has to put points on the board before the midterm elections. Ronald Reagan lost 26 seats in the House in his first midterm, Bill Clinton lost 54, and Barack Obama lost a breathtaking 63 seats.
The greatest problem for the Justice Department is that the White House and the political team appear to be largely dictating these moves. Political aides see these hills as worth dying on. Even if they lose in court, fighting to remove criminal aliens or to reduce certain foreign aid remains popular with voters.
Don’t alienate judges
The frenzy, however, can come at a cost. That includes alienating justices on the Supreme Court. The resistance to court orders and hyperbolic rhetoric seems to be wearing thin with members like Chief Justice John Roberts.
Trump will need these votes when they really count on big-ticket items like his inherent authority to act in areas ranging from markets to migrants.
Fights over Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia are burning time and effort. If he was simply returned as ordered by a court, Abrego Garcia could be promptly and correctly deported right back to El Salvador. He has no cognizable basis for remaining in the United States.
Richard Carlson, a Bay Area psychotherapist, famously wrote a book titled “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff … and it’s all Small Stuff.” Fights like Garcia are small stuff.
Of course, much of what presidents do is “big stuff” and you have two years to make those things happen. In a curious way, the Trump administration is fortunate to have many of these issues in court early to gain greater finality on the lines of authority. However, it needs to focus on the big stuff . . . and a short calendar.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University and the author of best-selling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Prof. Turley has lost much credibility in my mind. During the Biden Administration, he reported on every transgression, however small, of the liberal/woke elite and I was grateful to him for that. It greatly influenced my understanding of and sympathy for Trump and it made me very happy when Trump won the election. Since the inauguration, Prof. Turley has literally ignored the transgressions of the Trump Administration, some of which are huge. The arm twisting of law firms, the damaging tariff policy, the government by Executive Orders, the utterly repulsive conduct and manners of Trump and several of his team. The whole ‚retaliation and retribution policy‘. I interpret his silence on these matters as tacit approval. It does not seem to matter to Prof. Turley that Trump’s conduct has damaged the reputation of the USA possibly beyond repair; certainly beyond repair in the foreseeable future. Trump has become a pariah on the world stage and he has succeeded in making Xi Jingpin appear as the adult in the room. He has vindicated the gangster, dictator and even murderer Putin. He has turned the invaded Ukraine into an aggressor. What used to be the beacon of liberty, justice and freedom (USA) has become a bullying nation. I have spent half of my adult/business life in America and with Americans. I was an unwavering admirer of America. I was an American at heart until 3 months ago. And now I have to admit defeat to all those against whose anti-Americanism I have argued for decades. America has become a bully nation, a nation whose leadership – apparently with broad popular approval – gangs up against the weak and schmoozes up to the gangsters, dictators and even murderers. I am terribly sad! And I am terribly disappointed in Prof. Turley!
PS: I should add that I have for years if not for decades recommended policies which Trump now claims as his own – bringing the budget deficit and – above all – the current account deficit under control; controlling migration; reforming the ‘deep state’; supporting freedom of speech; constraining the woke virus; etc. But in a way in which Ronald Reagan might have done it and certainly not in the primitive, brutal and bullying way in which Trump & Co. do it. Trump and Co. are an insult to America’s Founding Fathers!
Both parties do it, but on day one Trump, John Sauer and Pam Bondi made a promise to GOD to uphold the U.S. Constitution and follow well established case law over decades and centuries.
Why would the Florida legal bar (or any attorney bar) allow any lawyer in their professional bar to retain their license to practice law to any lawyer – including an attorney general or solicitor general – that intentionally is disloyal to their Oath of Office?
Why would any minister or person of faith support any politician that intentionally violates their Oath of Office?
The state level legal bar associations were derelict in their duty to disbar torture attorneys from ever practicing law again.
Why is Bondi and Sauer allowed to practice law today violating court rulings, trying to illegally amend the 14th Amendment and trying to subvert decades and centuries of case law?
Why do we need state level bar associations if they provide no checks on government lawyers violating their Oath of Office? Shouldn’t U.S. taxpayers be reimbursed by Bondi and Sauer for trying to overturn decades/centurues old case law (termed frivolous lawsuits) and overturn 100+ year constitutional amendments. Why are taxpayers paying for this?
#. It’s all a shameful disgrace, an insult to Americans, our families and our ancestry , our mothers and fathers to endure any of this. They’ve disgraced not only the living but the dead, our fathers and mothers . If you as an individual can withstand the disgrace is one thing but to disgrace our fathers and mothers no longer here is another. They are not here to fight for their good name. A disgrace to witness this treason …
If the return of Garcia is such “small stuff” for Trump, why would he not do it to satisfy the SCOTUS? He justifies his refusal by showing a photoshopped picture of Garcia’s knuckles as evidence of his being a member of MS-13. Could the return of Garcia uncover this scam. Just google “MS-13 knuckles Garcia” and see how real this “Knuckle-Gate” scam is.
I don’t see this as small stuff. The courts are trying to order Trump to negotiate a release of a foreigner from a foreign regime. If he concedes and just goes along with it, what is to stop some judge to order him to “take Ukraine’s side” on the war efforts and “facilitate” an end to the war as Zelensky wants it?
There is no place for the courts to tell a President how to perform any sort of foreign policy, even small things like having Garcia brought back to the U.S. for the irrelevant issue of deporting him again. He has had his due process and is deportable. Yes, he was not supposed to go back to El Salvador, but it seems moot at this point. He will never live in the United States as long as Trump is President.
This was one of the dumbest USSC decisions in my humble opinion. They seem to have conceded that the judge in question had no business “ordering” Trump to bring back Garcia, because of the article II powers and the President’s exclusivity on the issues of foreign diplomacy. It should have ended there and the court should have just said we have no jurisdiction to make any President perform any foreign policy. Instead by ordering the “facilitation” they contradicted the other part of the order. Not only that but the order is so vague that 10 different people seem to believe it means 10 different things. Dumb, dumb, dumb. But it is indicative of the Roberts court.
Nice comment.
A slight correction: “. . . he was not supposed to go back to El Salvador . . .”
The Court ordered him not to be deported to *Guatemala*. That fact makes this case even more bizarre.
If the return of Garcia is such “small stuff” for Trump, why would he not do it to satisfy the SCOTUS? He justifies his refusal by showing a photoshopped picture of Garcia’s knuckles as evidence of his being a member of MS-13. Could the return of Garcia uncover this scam. Just google “MS-13 knuckles Garcia” and see how real this scam is.
Not photoshopped. Take your propaganda elsewhere…