What major cases show Donald Trump personally ignoring court rulings (e.g., travel ban, census, emoluments)?
Executive summary
Major episodes cited by critics as examples of Donald Trump “ignoring” court rulings center on aggressive enforcement choices and rapid executive actions that courts blocked or limited, most prominently a 2025 use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans that advocacy groups say proceeded despite emergency court filings, and a broader pattern of litigation in which the administration frequently appealed or sought emergency stays rather than accepting lower-court defeats [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, authoritative legal observers note that the administration often complied with orders or sought appellate relief, making the evidence for deliberate, personal noncompliance mixed rather than absolute [4] [5].
1. The Alien Enemies Act and emergency deportations: the clearest contested episode
Reporting and legal commentary highlight a March–April 2025 episode in which the administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and moved quickly to deport roughly 200 Venezuelan migrants while ACLU lawyers pursued emergency relief through district courts, the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court — critics characterize those removals as acting “despite” ongoing judicial proceedings [1] [2]. Analysts at The Conversation and Mother Jones show how the sequence of rapid executive action and emergency filings created a perception that court imperatives were being subordinated to enforcement urgency, though the factual record in those pieces focuses on timing and legal contention rather than an explicit presidential order to flout court mandates [1] [2].
2. Travel ban and other early-era examples: compliance despite public rhetoric
Scholars who tracked the first Trump term emphasize that while the president publicly railed against adverse decisions, the administration in many instances implemented court orders or litigated them through the appellate process rather than openly defying them — a point made by the Brennan Center’s review of what courts can do when administrations resist rulings [4]. That same source contrasts contemporary disputes with historical, overt state-level refusals to follow Supreme Court mandates, underscoring that wholesale, public defiance has been rare in the modern federal executive context [4].
3. A litigation tsunami and a strategy of appeals, stays and emergency filings
Data-driven trackers compiled by Lawfare, Just Security and SCOTUSblog document hundreds of cases filed against the administration, frequent emergency petitions to the Supreme Court, and a high rate of stays and favorable emergency decisions from the high court — a pattern that looks more like an aggressive appellate strategy than uniform noncompliance [3] [6] [7]. SCOTUSblog counted that in 2025 the Supreme Court decided many emergency docket items involving the administration and ruled for the government in the large majority of those emergency matters, a fact that reshaped how lower-court rulings were enforced [7].
4. Immunity fight, tariffs, and the political theater around judicial rulings
The Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity decision and subsequent high-stakes disputes — including litigation over sweeping tariffs and claims about the administration’s authority — have intensified rhetoric about a “constitutional crisis,” with legal scholars, former judges and media outlets warning that presidential statements and tactics test the judiciary’s authority even when formal compliance occurs via appeals [8] [9] [10]. Those sources document both concrete legal rulings and public rebukes from figures like Chief Justice Roberts, showing the mix of institutional pushback and continued litigation [8] [10].
5. Verdict: patterns of aggressive litigation and occasional operational choices that fuel claims of defiance, but limited proof of consistent, personal flouting of orders
Taken together, the sources show an administration that repeatedly pushes legal limits, uses emergency appeals and in at least one high-profile case moved rapidly while litigation was pending — circumstances that reasonable critics and scholars describe as testing judicial authority — yet leading academic and legal analyses also stress that in many instances the government complied with court orders or pursued appeals rather than flatly refusing to obey lower-court mandates, leaving the claim that Trump personally and consistently ignored court rulings supported in part but not proven as a blanket practice across all major disputes [2] [5] [4] [3].