Last updated: August 18, 2026. This page lists additional violations beyond the most egregious cases.
| Date | Administration Action | Why is this Illegal? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration demanded that the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators hand over the entire Commercial Driver’s License Information System — the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and license numbers of more than 17 million drivers, going back five years — within six days or lose more than $10 million in federal funding. DHS issued a parallel immigration-enforcement subpoena for the same records. | Twenty-two states and DC sued on August 13, 2026, arguing the agencies exceeded their statutory authority and that a bulk demand reaching back five years with no privacy limits violates federal driver-privacy and records laws. The records belong to the states. | Judge Anthony Trenga issued an administrative stay the next day, ordering the government not to inspect the records and to return anything already produced while the court considers the states’ emergency motion. |
| August 2026 | The Administration for Children and Families issued a rule letting it share the records of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients — including immigration status and Social Security numbers — with DHS and other agencies, and potentially with private entities. More than 20 states and DC sued to block it on August 3, 2026. | The states argue the rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and overrides the privacy protections Congress attached to the benefits program. | The suit was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. |
| August 2026 | The Treasury Department stopped publishing the legally required details of payments from the Judgment Fund — including the names of claimants and their lawyers — obscuring whether January 6 defendants and other presidential allies were receiving taxpayer-funded settlements. CREW sued on August 3, 2026. | Federal law requires Treasury to disclose those settlement details. The suit alleges the department instead adopted an “across-the-board policy of noncompliance” with that duty. | The suit followed the collapse of the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, after which Trump allies pursued payouts through Federal Tort Claims Act settlements instead. |
| July 2026 | Moved to strip work authorization from tens of thousands of asylum seekers and immigrants holding Temporary Protected Status. On July 21, 2026 a federal judge temporarily blocked the policy. | The affected immigrants held work permits issued under statutes and regulations that do not authorize revoking them en masse, and the change was made without the process federal law requires. | |
| June 2026 | The Department of Energy reported fiscal year 2025 “enacted” budget amounts exceeding what Congress actually appropriated across six accounts. | The Government Accountability Office concluded that to the extent the department obligated funds beyond appropriated amounts, it “should report an Antideficiency Act violation” — the law that criminalizes spending money Congress never appropriated. | GAO’s definitive finding was limited by incomplete data from the department. |
| May 2026 | Cabinet officials campaigned in partisan elections while enforcement of the law prohibiting it collapsed: the Defense Secretary spoke at a campaign rally against a sitting congressman; a senior White House adviser made partisan Senate-race comments under his official title; and the HHS Secretary called third-party candidates urging them to quit races. | The Hatch Act bars federal officials from using their offices for partisan campaigning; Senate-confirmed Defense officials are under further restrictions. Watchdog complaints are pending, but the Office of Special Counsel — whose Senate-confirmed head was fired — now refers White House officials’ violations to the president himself, effectively ending enforcement. | |
| January 2026 | Fired tenured federal employees using “probationary” procedures — in one case terminating a cybersecurity employee one day after his probationary period ended, without the notice and response rights federal law requires — following the mass purges of probationary workers in early 2025. | A Merit Systems Protection Board judge ruled the firing unlawful under Title 5’s civil service protections and ordered reinstatement with back pay; MSPB judges also certified class actions for ~1,600 re-terminated HHS workers and Commerce Department probationers fired without individualized cause. | |
| October 2025 | During the government shutdown, directed reduction-in-force notices to roughly 4,000+ employees across 30+ agencies, with officials framing the layoffs as punishment of Democrats. | A federal judge found the layoffs “both illegal and in excess of authority,” writing that the budget and personnel offices acted as if “the laws don’t apply to them anymore.” | Congress itself statutorily reversed the layoffs in the deal ending the shutdown, and a judge in December ordered hundreds of finalized layoffs reversed. |
| August 2025 | The National Labor Relations Board deleted the system accounts it had created for DOGE staff before government auditors could examine them, leaving the Government Accountability Office unable to verify what level of access to sensitive personnel systems DOGE had been given. | The Federal Records Act requires agencies to preserve federal records and to notify the National Archives and the Justice Department of any unlawful destruction; it is unclear the required notification was ever made. | GAO reported it could not verify the Board’s account of DOGE’s access because the accounts and associated records were deleted in August 2025, before auditors could observe the systems (GAO-26-108774, footnotes 11 and 17). The Board’s Inspector General is separately investigating whistleblower allegations that DOGE mishandled sensitive labor-case data. |
| June 2025 | Gave private Medicaid data to immigration officials, and in July 2025 signed a formal agreement giving ICE access to data on nearly 80 million Medicaid recipients. | This is a violation of federal privacy law. A federal judge barred DHS from using Medicaid data for immigration enforcement in August 2025, warning the practice “threatens to significantly disrupt the operation of Medicaid.” | A December 2025 ruling allowed sharing of basic biographical information of people unlawfully present while enjoining anything beyond that. Reporting in January 2026 revealed ICE uses a contractor-built targeting tool that taps Medicaid-derived address data to plan arrests. |
| May 2025 | The USDA (with DOGE) demanded that states and food-stamp vendors hand over personal data — names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, addresses — on tens of millions of SNAP applicants and recipients, then threatened to cut SNAP funds to 21 states and DC that refused. | Federal law permits disclosure of SNAP data only to persons “directly connected with” program administration. A federal judge blocked the collection, finding the government intended to use the data beyond program administration, and blocked the funding retaliation. | By October 2025, at least 27 states had already turned over sensitive recipient data before courts intervened. |
| April 2025 | Dismissed hundreds of researchers preparing the National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive report on how rising temperatures will impact human health and the economy. | This report is Congressionally mandated and experts say that this move will likely prevent its production. | Later, the public website was taken down completely. |
| April 2025 | The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau laid off almost 90% of its employees less than a day after a judicial order requiring a “particularized assessment” of each employee’s role in satisfying the Bureau’s legal duty. | It is unlikely the officials were able to conduct an assessment of nearly 1,700 employees’ responsibilities in less than 24 hours. The same judge halted the firings. | The appeals court’s injunction blocking mass firings remains in place; the administration’s later attempt to defund the bureau entirely is covered on the Federal Spending pages. |
| March 2025 | Categorically revoked humanitarian parole for roughly 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who had been lawfully admitted under the CHNV programs, ordering them to leave within 30 days. | A federal judge certified a class and blocked the mass revocation, holding that the Immigration and Nationality Act requires case-by-case parole determinations rather than categorical termination. | In May 2025, the Supreme Court stayed the injunction while litigation continues, over dissents by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson. |
| March 2025 | DOGE refused to process Freedom of Information Act requests, claiming it is not an agency subject to the law — despite its sweeping authority across the government. | A federal judge ruled DOGE is likely an “agency” subject to FOIA — citing its “substantial independent authority” and “unusual secrecy” — and ordered document preservation and processing; a unanimous appeals court upheld orders allowing discovery into DOGE’s status. | The Supreme Court narrowed early discovery orders; DOGE’s petition to the Court was pending as of July 2026, with no DOGE FOIA request yet fulfilled through trial. |
| March 2025 | Signed an executive order ending the collective bargaining agreements of employees of about 20 federal agencies. | The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 gives the president the authority to halt collective bargaining at only agencies related to national security like the CIA and FBI. This order expands to federal employees across the government like at the Departments of Agriculture and Health & Human Services. | In April 2026, the Defense Secretary ordered most Pentagon collective bargaining agreements terminated within 24 hours; more than 20 union affiliates sued in July 2026, alleging he exceeded his statutory authority. |
| February 2025 | Stripped Temporary Protected Status from roughly 600,000 Venezuelans by “vacating” the designation, and terminated Haiti’s TPS early. | A federal appeals court ruled in January 2026 that the Homeland Security Secretary exceeded her authority: her actions “fundamentally contradict Congress’s statutory design” — the TPS statute provides no vacatur power. | A Supreme Court emergency order lets the terminations remain in effect while litigation continues. |
| February 2025 | The National Institutes of Health terminated hundreds of grants. | NIH did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act, which outlines how federal agencies can make such decisions. | See also the NIH entries on the Federal Spending page. |
| January 2025 | Issued agency actions under day-one executive orders that halted or throttled federal permitting for wind and solar projects, including an unexplained three-tier political review process that caused developers to cancel or delay projects nationwide. | A federal judge preliminarily blocked the permitting blockade in April 2026, finding the actions likely arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. |