Appellate court slap downs in Trump cases highlight mounting tension in the judiciary As contentious cases work through federal courts, judges in higher courts have sharply criticized lower court judges in reversals of rulings. Since January 2026, federal appeals courts have already reversed adverse rulings against President Donald Trump at least 11 times, with several of the rulings featuring harsh words for lower court judges who stretched the bounds of their authority. Patel looking to release old files on Swalwell's ties to alleged Chinese spyIt comes after appeals courts reversed dozens of rulings against Trump during the first year of his presidency, when the Trump administration faced an unprecedented deluge of lawsuits challenging virtually every part of his agenda. At the Supreme Court, Trump has won 25 of the 29 times the justices have weighed in on a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration. Several Trump-related cases are still pending at the high court. Tension has always existed both within the judiciary and between the judiciary and the other two branches of government, but many of the Trump cases have deepened divisions between the district and appeals courts, John Shu, a constitutional law expert who served in both Bush administrations, told the“There’s always been a tension between appellate circuit courts and their district courts,” Shu said. “District courts don’t like being reversed, whereas appellate courts don’t mind doing so. Oftentimes, district courts will complain that the appellate courts didn’t give them sufficient deference, although issues of law are supposed to be reviewed “One different thing now in some circuits, though, is that we’ve never had a situation where so many district court judges across the country clearly have personal animus towards the President and his administration,” Shu said. “It affects their decision-making and their writing. We’ve even seen certain district court judges contradict or ignore either the appellate court or the Supreme Court itself, which is a huge problem.”Appeals court orders so far this year have ranged from simple reversals to sharp rebukes of lower court judges’ orders. While appeals courts have sometimes upheld lower courts’ rulings against the Trump administration, they have in other cases chastised district court judges for exceeding the bounds of the law in order to block the Trump administration. Some of the harshest words for a lower court came in an appeals court ruling striking down a sweeping order by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, that restricted the federal government’s immigration operations in the Chicago area. Ellis’ ruling had limited the use of force by federal immigration officers, and it wasby a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit earlier this month. In a scathing, unsigned majority ruling, two of the judges took aim at Ellis’ “overbroad, constitutionally suspect injunction.” “The court’s injunction also impermissibly infringes on separation of powers principles,” the majority on the appeals court panel wrote. “It effectively established the district court as the supervisor of all Executive Branch activity in the city of Chicago—a role another federal court of appeals has found problematic. “As we exercise our ‘broad’ ‘supervisory power’ over district courts, vacating this order signals district courts to avoid issuing similarly expansive injunctions against the Executive Branch,” the ruling reads. The ruling was a firm message to lower circuit court judges that they ought not to attempt to issue similar orders. Another ruling by an appeals court panel in the 8th Circuit in January lifted an injunction placed by a lower district court limiting the conduct of federal immigration officers in Minneapolis. The ruling also criticized the district court’s order as “too broad” and “too vague.” “Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch,” the appeals court ruling in the Minneapolis case reads. “And the structural injunction imposed here, given its breadth and vagueness, is too big a step in that direction.”Other appeals court rulings handed down this year have chastised lower court judges for inserting their own policy preferences in place of what the correct legal ruling ought to be. In a decision by a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in February, the circuit judgesprograms in the federal government and among federal grantees and contractors. The ruling lifted an injunction placed by a lower court, with U.S. Circuit Judge Albert Diaz, an Obama appointee, writing for the majority that the administration was within its lawful ability to issue the executive order. “Whether that’s sound policy or not isn’t our call,” the majority ruling said. “We ask only whether the policy is unconstitutionally vague for funding recipients.” Diaz separately wrote in his own concurring opinion that he made the decision in accordance with his oath as a judge, strongly suggesting he personally disagrees with the executive order itself, and urging supporters of DEI to “follow the law” and “depend on the Constitution, which remains a beaconA similar rationale was given when a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit allowed Trump’s decision to largely halt the U.S. refugee program. U.S. Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, an appointee of former President George W. Bush,“Whether that consequence reflects prudent policy is not a question for this court,” Bybee wrote in a March ruling. “To hold otherwise would be to substitute our judgment for Congress’s, and the President’s authority under § 1182 precludes much of Plaintiffs’ request for relief here.” The appeals courts’ rulings explicitly separate policy preferences and legal questions, overruling district courts that blurred that line in their decisions. “The No. 1 quality for judges is that they have to put aside their personal feelings and apply and follow the law as it is written, not as they want it to be written,” Shu told the“Judges are not supposed write or rewrite the law because that’s the legislature’s job,” Shu said. “Legislation is messy, takes a while, and requires compromise, but that’s the way it is. Our Constitution assigns that task to the legislature, not the judiciary.”in March at the 8th Circuit, which reversed a lower federal district court in Minnesota. Both rulings found that the lower courts erred in allowing detained illegal immigrants to be released after habeas corpus petitions, striking down the logic behind hundreds of lawsuits contesting the mandatory detention policy in those two judicial circuits.In two separate cases in which an appeals court helped the administration by overruling a lower court, the appellate court criticized the lower court for lacking jurisdiction to make its ruling.in releasing Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and noncitizen, from immigration detention, ruling that his claims should have been handled by an immigration court. Later that month, a panel of the 4th Circuit found the lower federal district courtin ruling that the administration had to pay out grants to more than 30 environmental groups, finding the case should have been brought to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Among the wins for the Trump administration this year were two rulings in the 9th Circuit, overruling lower district courts on the Trump administration’s bid to end temporary protected status for Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, as well as on its bid to rescind collective bargaining agreements from some government unions. One of the rulings overturning a lower court — the 1st Circuit panel allowed administration’s third-country deportation policy to move forward but offered no explanation — came after U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, tried unsuccessfully to block the policy three separate times. Third-country deportations occur when an immigrant is deported to a country other than his or her home country. In June 2025, the Supreme Court granted an emergency docket petition to lift Murphy’s preliminary injunction blocking the third-country deportation policy. Murphy still tried to enforce another order that was built on the one the justices lifted, leading the Supreme Court to quickly block the subsequent order. In February, Murphy issued a final ruling, superseding the previous order that was lifted, finding the policy was “not fine, nor is it legal.” Before the case had to return to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, the First Circuit halted the third ruling. “Some district court judges even are willing to explicitly contradict or ignore either the appellate court or the Supreme Court itself,” Shu told theTension in federal courts simmer beyond Trump reversals Beyond the cases where Trump has been successful in federal appeals courts, growing tension between the different levels of the judiciary has manifested in other ways. In some cases where the administration has been unsuccessful in getting a lower court’s ruling overturned, dissenting appeals court judges have issued some feisty responses. In a ruling by the full 9th Circuit keeping a block on the Trump administration from ending TPS for Venezuela, for example, U.S. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, excoriated the majority of the panel for making themselves “the Platonic Guardian of our immigration laws rather than neutral interpreters of the law.” “The panel has ignored strong hints from the Supreme Court that we’ve gotten this wrong,” Bumatay said in his dissent. “Twice now, the Supreme Court has intervened and effectively reversed the Ninth Circuit in this very case by granting stays that this court had denied. The panel should have seen the writing on the wall. Instead, it turned a blind eye.” The Supreme Court itself referenced lower courts’ disregard for its rulings in an emergency order in a case about California’s public school policy of hiding students’ gender transitions from parents. A majority on the Supreme Court, 6-3, lifted an order from the 9th Circuit, allowing the lower federal district court’s statewide block of the policy to remain in effect., which upheld parents’ right to opt their children out of LGBT materials at school and found that not permitting such an option violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. The unsigned majority ruling found “California’s policies will likely not survive the strict scrutiny thatThe sharp rejection of the 9th Circuit’s ruling came in Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concurring opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She wrote that the appeals court “significantly misunderstood ” and that “general course correction will allow the case to progress efficiently.” As more contentious cases make their way through the courts this year, blistering dissents and opinions are expected to continue as tension builds among the different levels of the judiciary, exacerbated by the avalanche of hotly contested Trump cases. Among the issues working their way through the courts are the president’s birthright citizenship executive order, TPS revocations, and mandatory detention of illegal immigrants.While some analysts believed the flood of blocks on Trump policies and actions would significantly slow as the new administration settled into office, district courts have still blocked Trump policies, even though many have been reversed. With cases taking years to work their way up the judiciary, the tension within the branch of government can significantly delay Trump’s agenda.. “For example, they’re not allowed to dictate policy or conduct foreign policy, which is why the Supreme Court eventually had to slap down certain judges. But the appellate process generally takes time, even on an emergency or expedited basis.”