Last updated: July 16, 2026. This page lists additional violations beyond the most egregious cases.
| Date | Administration Action | Why does this violate the Constitution? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2025 | Ordered the suspension of asylum access at the southern border. | A federal judge ruled in July 2025 that “Nothing in the INA or the Constitution grants the President or his delegees” the authority to create “an extra-statutory, extra-regulatory regime for repatriating or removing individuals from the United States, without an opportunity to apply for asylum.” | An appeals court affirmed that the proclamation was unlawful while narrowing the injunction’s scope. |
| January 2025 | Repeatedly ordered non-enforcement of the bipartisan TikTok divest-or-ban statute — upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court — through successive executive-order “extensions,” and promised technology companies immunity from the statute’s penalties. | The statute permits only a single 90-day extension upon certification of progress toward divestiture. Legal scholars across the spectrum called the serial extensions “blatantly unlawful” and a violation of the president’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. | A divestiture deal was eventually struck in late 2025, but the intervening extensions had no statutory basis. |
| February 2025 | Ordered that the Department of Homeland Security rescind the Temporary Protected Status for Haitian migrants months earlier than Congress specified. | The president cannot ignore laws passed by Congress. A federal judge blocked the accelerated termination in July 2025 as exceeding the Secretary’s authority. | A federal appeals court likewise ruled in January 2026 that stripping protected status from ~600,000 Venezuelans through “vacatur” was unlawful — the TPS statute provides no such power — though a Supreme Court emergency order let the terminations remain in effect during litigation. |
| March 2025 | Deported a Rhode Island doctor with a valid visa despite a court order that she not be removed until a hearing be held. | The Constitution does not allow the president to defy court orders. | |
| March 2025 | Ordered the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to update the national voter registration forms to include a proof of citizenship requirement. | This is a governing body created by Congress and it is likely illegal for the president to give it orders or for the Commission to make the changes he is suggesting. | In November 2025, a federal judge permanently blocked the key provisions, holding the executive orders “unconstitutional and void” because “our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress.” |
| May 2025 | Fired the Register of Copyrights by email the day after her office released a report on artificial intelligence that the president disliked — even though the Register is appointed by the Librarian of Congress, a legislative-branch office over which the president has no removal authority. | The president cannot remove officers of Congress’s own institutions. An appeals court restored her to office in September 2025, and the Supreme Court declined to disturb that ruling. | The administration also fired the Librarian of Congress and attempted to install Justice Department officials at the Library of Congress. |
| June 2025 | Struck Iranian nuclear facilities on June 21, 2025 without seeking congressional authorization or advance consultation. | Article I gives Congress the power to declare war. The Brennan Center concluded the bombing “can happen only with the authorization of Congress”; constitutional scholars concluded the strike was unconstitutional absent an actual or imminent attack on the U.S. | Bipartisan war powers resolutions were introduced but failed. The strikes were the precursor to the full war with Iran that began in February 2026 (see the main page). |
| June 2025 | The Justice Department filed an unprecedented civil lawsuit against all 15 federal district judges in Maryland over a standing order that briefly paused deportations of habeas petitioners. | Legal experts called it an unprecedented attack on judicial independence. The specially assigned judge dismissed the case, writing that it went against precedent and the rule of law and that the government had ordinary appellate remedies. | The dismissal called the suit “potentially calamitous” for relations between the branches. |
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