What civil lawsuits have been brought against Joe Biden and their statuses?
Executive summary
A broad constellation of civil lawsuits — largely brought by state attorneys general, advocacy groups, and international civil-society coalitions — has targeted President Joe Biden and his administration on issues from student loan relief to asylum restrictions and foreign-policy decisions; some have produced final rulings (notably the Supreme Court reversal of the student‑loan plan) while many remain active in federal courts [1] [2] [3] [4]. The litigation map is partisan and piecemeal: Republican state AGs have filed dozens of suits framed as checks on executive power, while civil‑liberties organizations have sued to block policy rollbacks they say violate statutory or constitutional protections [5] [6] [3].
1. Multistate and state‑led challenges — the litigation machine of Republican attorneys general
A steady stream of multistate suits has challenged Biden administration policies across energy, immigration, environmental and administrative-rule areas, with Ballotpedia cataloguing suits such as the Nebraska/Missouri-led challenge to student‑loan relief and other actions against executive directives and agency rules [1] [7]. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Republican AGs have repeatedly litigated against the administration — Paxton’s office touts more than 100 suits filed and claims a high win rate, including early litigation over deportation pauses and more recent challenges to FCC and offshore‑drilling actions [5] [8]. These filings are often styled as separation‑of‑powers, APA or preemption claims; the AG offices frame them as defending taxpayers and states’ rights, an explicit partisan and political posture contained in the sources [5] [9].
2. Student‑loan litigation — the clearest high court decision and continuing follow‑ons
The most consequential civil litigation to date is the multistate challenge that reached the Supreme Court and resulted in the Court striking down a large student‑loan relief plan as exceeding executive authority, a 6–3 decision cited by state plaintiffs and reported in state AG materials and Ballotpedia [1] [2]. That ruling ended the particular relief program struck down, but state AGs have continued to pursue follow‑on suits and new challenges to subsequent repayment and SAVE plan actions — for example, Missouri’s Attorney General filed a new coalition suit against Biden’s “SAVE” Plan, described in the state AG’s press release as ongoing litigation [2].
3. Civil‑society and human‑rights suits — asylum rule and genocide allegations
Civil‑liberties groups, notably the ACLU and allied legal centers, have brought suits challenging the administration’s asylum proclamation and new rule as inconsistent with the asylum statute; that case (Las Americas v. DHS) was filed in June 2024 and is reported as ongoing litigation [3]. Separately, human‑rights organizations and Palestinian groups filed a high‑profile civil suit accusing Biden and top officials of failing to prevent genocide in Gaza and seeking to bar U.S. support for Israel; that litigation has attracted international amicus support and is pending in federal court, with the Center for Constitutional Rights publicizing the filing and the amicus briefs [4] [10].
4. Voting records, administrative access and other niche lawsuits — lots of active dockets
Republican state officials in Florida, Ohio and Texas sued the administration alleging DHS unlawfully withheld citizenship records needed for voter‑roll maintenance, invoking the Administrative Procedure Act and related statutes; those suits were filed in late 2024 and remain part of an active slate of challenges tied to election administration [6]. Other targeted suits across the tracker of major decisions include inherited Trump‑era cases and complaints on death‑penalty, sanctions and torture issues that the Biden administration must decide whether to defend, settle, or abandon — a litigation landscape tracked and analyzed by legal observers such as Just Security [11].
5. Status snapshot and the politics of litigation posture
The statuses vary: some cases have definitive outcomes (Supreme Court defeat on the loan plan) while many remain pending in lower federal courts or at the motion stage (asylum suits, SAVE plan challenges, state challenges to agency rules) as documented in the cited press releases and trackers; plaintiff AG offices frame ongoing suits as victories for states’ rights, which signals explicit political incentive and messaging as much as legal strategy [1] [2] [5] [3]. Public materials from state AGs and advocacy groups provide the available view of filings and claimed outcomes, but comprehensive case‑by‑case dispositions and appellate trajectories require court dockets beyond these summaries for up‑to‑the‑minute status — the sources here establish the major categories and notable rulings but do not exhaust every active civil complaint against the president [1] [11].