{"id":46123,"date":"2026-03-07T14:10:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T14:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=46123"},"modified":"2026-03-07T14:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T14:10:20","slug":"courts-have-threatened-to-hold-the-trump-administration-in-contempt-its-time-to-follow-through-austin-sarat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=46123","title":{"rendered":"Courts have threatened to hold the Trump administration in contempt. It\u2019s time to follow through | Austin Sarat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

L<\/span>ate last month, a Minnesota federal court judge, Patrick Schiltz, issued an opinion detailing hundreds of instances in which the Trump administration has failed to comply with court orders. He threatened to find it in contempt and to impose penalties.<\/p>\n

Schiltz and other federal judges have made such threats before, but they have not followed through. It is time they did, lest they turn their courts into paper tigers.<\/p>\n

The administration knows what it is doing. It treats judicial decisions the same way it regards elections.<\/p>\n

As the president has said many times, he will abide by the results of elections only if they are \u201cfair\u201d. And in his mind, an election can only be fair if his side wins.<\/p>\n

The same thing seems to be true for court decisions. The latest example occurred in the wake of the supreme court decision holding his imposition of tariffs to be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

The president reacted by accusing the justices who ruled against him of being \u201cvery unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution\u201d. But he didn\u2019t stop there. He accused the court of being \u201cswayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think\u201d.<\/p>\n

He has used such invective many times before. And in December, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, weighed in with similar claims, this time directed against judges in the eastern district of Virginia after they ruled that the administration violated the law in its appointment of US attorney Lindsey Halligan. Bondi accused them of \u201cengaging in an unconscionable campaign of bias and hostility\u201d and called them \u201crogue judges who fail to live up to their obligations of impartiality because of their own political views\u201d.<\/p>\n

I could multiply the examples, but Trump and his colleagues have made clear their contempt for judges who don\u2019t see the constitution and laws the way they do.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, almost from the start of the president\u2019s second term, his administration has perfected the art of what the law professors Leah Litman and Daniel Deacon have dubbed \u201clegalistic noncompliance\u201d with court orders. As they explained: \u201cThe administration uses the language of the law as cover to claim that it is complying with court orders when in fact it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, it has not stopped there.<\/p>\n

In his extraordinary opinion, Schiltz identified \u201c210 orders issued in 143 cases in Minnesota in which he said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not complied with court orders,\u201d per the New York Times. In many of those instances, the administration ignored them without offering any legal justification.<\/p>\n

The same day that Schiltz issued his ruling detailing such non-compliance, another federal district judge accused the administration of engaging in \u201cnumerous unlawful violations of court orders\u201d. Judge Jeffrey Bryan noted: \u201cOn February 20, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents \u2018to immediately return all property in their possession, custody, or control to Petitioner\u2019s counsel\u2019\u201d and to file declarations \u201cby an individual with personal knowledge \u2026 confirming that all property of Petitioner was returned to Petitioner and attaching documentation of that fact\u201d.<\/p>\n

He noted: \u201cAs of the date of this Order, Respondents have not complied.\u201d Bryan scheduled a hearing at which \u201cRespondents must show cause why they should not be held in civil or criminal contempt in each of the above-captioned cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markIf they don\u2019t use that power, courts allow their decisions to be treated like mere requests that litigants are free to ignore<\/p>\n

We will see what happens. So far, federal judges have talked a good game about holding Trump administration officials in contempt for defying their orders but have rarely acted.<\/p>\n

In a break from that pattern, last April, federal district judge James Boasberg found \u201cprobable cause\u201d to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court for ignoring an order to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador. He said: \u201cThe Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in August, a federal appeals court overruled him.<\/p>\n

Contempt can be a powerful tool. Last month, for instance, federal district judge Laura Provinzino entered a conditional civil contempt judgment against an assistant united states attorney in Minnesota. She imposed $500 a day fine for every day that he refused to comply with her order to release an immigrant detainee with all his identification documents.<\/p>\n

The government returned the documents the next day.<\/p>\n

The power of the courts to issue and enforce contempt citations to government officials is not in doubt. In 1975, the United States supreme court put it simply when it said that it is a \u201cbasic [legal] proposition that all orders and judgments of courts must be complied with promptly\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court explained: \u201cIf a person to whom a court directs an order believes that order is incorrect, the remedy is to appeal, but, absent a stay, he must comply promptly with the order pending appeal. Persons,\u201d it continued, \u201cwho make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt even if the order is ultimately ruled incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those persons include government officials.<\/p>\n

Scholars trace the judiciary\u2019s contempt power back to 14th-century England when judges \u201cemployed the contempt power to enforce obedience to writs, address dereliction of duty by court officers, and punish contumacious behavior (a legal term meaning disobedient or disrespectful conduct showing contempt for the court or the law), whether committed in or out of court,\u201d as the Federal Judicial Center explains.<\/p>\n

In this country, Congress granted federal courts the power \u201cto punish by fine or imprisonment \u2026 all contempts of authority in any cause or hearing before the same\u201d in the Judiciary Act of 1789.<\/p>\n

Almost 100 later, the supreme court justice Stephen Field wrote: \u201cThe power to punish for contempts is inherent in all courts; its existence is essential to the preservation of order in judicial proceedings and to the enforcement of the judgments, orders, and writs of the courts, and consequently to the due administration of justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment the courts of the United States,\u201d he added, \u201cwere called into existence and invested with jurisdiction over any subject, they became possessed of this power.\u201d<\/p>\n

If they don\u2019t use that power, courts allow their decisions to be treated like mere requests that litigants are free to ignore. That is what Trump administration officials are now doing.<\/p>\n

It is time for judges to remind them that when courts issue decisions, they are obligated to obey by holding those officials in contempt and fining or sentencing them to jail accordingly.<\/p>\n

Judge Schlitz was right to observe that never before in American history has \u201ca federal court had to threaten contempt-again and again and again-to force the United States Government<\/em> to comply with court orders.\u201d He ended his ruling by saying: \u201cOne way or the other ICE will comply with this court\u2019s rulings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now it is time for him and other judges to turn such words into action.<\/p>\n