The United States Court system consists of 94 U.S. District Courts, 13 Appellate Courts, and one Supreme Court. These courts are made up of 865 judges and justices. These judges are the highest authorities on the law in our nation and many of them will preside over cases against Trump and his administration’s unprecedented overreach.
The Congress is effectively suspended. Republicans hold both chambers and dissidence among their ranks seems increasingly unlikely. Blatantly unconstitutional acts like suspending birthright citizenship, which is indisputably guaranteed under the 14th Amendment without any lawful exceptions, have gone completely unchecked by the Republican-controlled Congress. House and Senate Republicans are treating these unparalleled rebukes of our Constitution and the nation’s highest laws as if it is business as usual. With a paralyzed Congress, the only authority that can rebuff America’s first felon President is the Article Three branch: the judiciary.
Our nation’s founding fathers envisioned an independent judiciary that is nonpartisan, interprets the law, and issues rulings strictly in accordance with the Constitution and U.S. law. It was established to be the nonpartisan refuge in our government that didn’t succumb to external influence and which constantly ensured that its two fellow co-equal branches didn’t step out of bounds.
In the first three weeks of this administration, the executive branch has operated without regard to the law. Over a dozen lawsuits have been brought against the Trump administration from 22 states, multiple nonprofits, and federal employee unions. Lawsuits are the only hope in challenging Trump’s illegal acts until at least 2027 when the 120th Congress begins and Democrats may gain a majority in the House.
On his first day as President, Trump signed an executive order that would define the 14th Amendment to exclude individuals whose parents were not U.S. citizens from birthright citizenship. The President has never had the authority to define the Constitution; this is the duty of the courts and the legislature, through appropriate legislation.
Trump’s move was undeniably illegal, prompting two separate groups of states to sue the administration overnight, seeking to pause the executive order and restore the rights granted to Americans under the 14th Amendment. Two judges, one in Washington and the other in Massachusetts, ruled that this move was illegal, ordering a stay on the executive order subject to further deliberation.
In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed, through the U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark decision, that any individual who was born in the United States, regardless of their parent’s status, is an American citizen. Trump’s executive order was a rebuke of this precedent and the Constitution.
If it had gone unchallenged, this would have wreaked devastating consequences on our economy and our government which relies on these individuals for critical blue-collar work and tax dollars. The social and political implications of such a move are incalculable.
Principles such as the separation of powers among our government’s three branches have been disregarded. Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo on Jan. 27 that halted all federal financial assistance. This included at least 2,300 critical government programs, among them food stamps that feed impoverished children and their families. The executive branch does not reserve any authority to halt funds appropriated by Congress and yet Trump ordered it to happen. Again, 22 states sued the Trump administration, seeking immediate action from the courts to pause the OMB’s disastrous and entirely illegal memo. The courts stepped in and halted this move, freeing up these funds to continue to flow to the 22 petitioning states.
These are just two of the many illegal and unconstitutional acts that the Trump administration has committed in its first weeks.
Ultimately, everything may be appealed to the Supreme Court—where six of the nine justices are conservatives and commonly side with Trump—by the Trump administration. It is the duty of the courts to be the impartial bodies that maintain law and order in our nation.
The preservation of the Constitution and our laws falls solely to the courts. The Congress is unwilling to act and the President is acting entirely devoid of Constitutional order. Violations of the Constitution, illegal suspensions of appropriated funds, and other unprecedented breaches of the law have been stopped by the courts thus far. The American people now rely on the courts to be the one authority that stands up against the Trump administration and its unrelenting rebukes of the law.
