In the Face of Defiance: Judicial Enforcement and an Uncooperative Executive
On Saturday, March 15, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act to expedite his campaign of mass deportations throughout the country. By invoking this 1798 wartime law against the Tren de Aragua gang, the Trump Administration built the legal framework to deport any non-citizen older than 13 they deemed to be part of the gang without a hearing or any form of due process. Later that afternoon, President Trump did exactly that. At around 2:30 pm, the Trump Administration deported approximately 250 people ICE alleged to be part of Tren de Aragua on two planes departing Texas for El Salvador. That evening, while the planes were in the air, District Court Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to halt any deportations using the Alien Enemies Act, stating, “You shall inform your clients of this immediately any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States.” The president, however, ignored this order. Despite Judge Boasberg’s ruling, the planes continued unimpeded to El Salvador, landing that evening. Trump’s refusal to comply with a federal court order sets the stage for a constitutional crisis. It questions how the judiciary can effectively enforce its rulings in the face of an increasingly authoritarian executive branch.
The checks and balances our government’s three branches place on each other lay at the foundation of American democracy, but Trump’s recent actions threaten to tear apart the delicate balance between the executive and the judiciary. Article III of the Constitution calls for establishing a Judiciary whose power “shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution.” The authors of the Constitution, however, did not explicitly lay out mechanisms for the judiciary to enforce its rulings. Politicians, judges, and scholars have largely come to a consensus that enforcement of judicial rulings comes through the executive branch, with the Presidential Oath’s requirement for the president to “faithfully execute” the duties of the office. However, this legal consensus also means that a President can ignore a federal court order if they choose not to enforce it. This lack of enforcement by the executive branch would effectively void the power of the judiciary, and this dynamic becomes even more troubling when the courts expect the president to enforce rulings that limit their own powers. While rare in American history, Trump’s refusal to comply with a court order is not without precedent.
The United States has faced similar constitutional crises before, with Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln ignoring Supreme Court orders in the nineteenth century. In 1832, the Supreme Court ruled that a Georgia state law did not apply to the Cherokee Nation in Worcester v. Georgia, affirming the sovereignty of the Cherokee and the unconstitutionality of Georgia’s attempts to restrict the lands of indigenous people. President Andrew Jackson, however, refused to enforce this ruling, allowing states to continue enacting policies that eroded the sovereignty of Indigenous nations; this led to the forcible removal of the Cherokee from their homelands a few years later in what became known as the Trail of Tears. In 1861, Chief Justice Roger Taney issued Ex parte Merryman, ruling that Lincoln did not have the authority to suspend habeas corpus—one’s right to legally challenge their imprisonment—without congressional approval. Lincoln ignored the opinion and continued suspending habeas corpus in a number of military arrests throughout the Civil War until Congress enacted legislation that allowed for the suspension of habeas corpus in 1863. In both cases, the president refused to comply with a federal court order, similar to the current showdown between Trump and Judge Boasberg.
Unlike Jackson and Lincoln, however, Trump’s refusal to comply with a court order directly aimed at curbing his power during a time of peace breaks nearly 250 years of political and legal norms. Worcester v. Georgia did not directly challenge the authority of the president but the authority of the state of Georgia. Additionally, Chief Justice Taney’s challenge to President Lincoln's authority in Ex Parte Merryman was issued during the outbreak of the Civil War, and the point largely became moot in 1863 when Congress suspended habeas corpus. By contrast, the order against President Trump called on Trump to immediately halt deportations under the Alien Enemies Act and return any outbound deportation flights ordered by the invocation of the act to the United States. Not only did the Trump Administration ignore Judge Boasberg’s order to turn the planes around, but Trump even called for Judge Boasberg to be impeached, writing, “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President [...] This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” In response to Trump's actions, Judge Boasberg ruled that there was probable cause to hold the Trump Administration in contempt of court for violating court orders. Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Trump Administration must halt deportations using the Alien Enemies Act. However, Trump has already defied a federal court on this issue once, and practically, nothing is stopping them from ignoring the judiciary again.
Statements are the only thing that the courts have. The judiciary cannot enforce its own rulings; it relies on the executive branch to carry out its opinions. For most of American history, this outsourcing of enforcement has worked well, but this dynamic is tenuous. The statements of the courts are only as good as the president’s willingness to enforce them. When they seek to curb the power of the executive branch, they are essentially relying on the goodwill of the president to comply. Trump’s actions in the first few months of his second term have shown that the judiciary cannot reasonably expect him to follow and enforce rulings aimed at restricting his power. His refusal to comply with a federal court order undermines the power of the judiciary, and it has the potential to destroy the delicate balance of the three branches of government fundamental to the American experiment.
Wesley Horn is a freshman studying History and Economics at Brown University. He is a staff writer for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be reached at wesley_horn@brown.edu.
Priyanka Nambiar is a freshman studying Cognitive Neuroscience at Brown University. She is a staff editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be reached at priyanka_nambiar@brown.edu.