US judges block aspects of Trump agenda as president targets Democratic fundraising platform – live | Trump administration

As a number of rulings have come in this afternoon with federal judges blocking several aspects of Trump’s agenda that he’s tried to enact via vehicles such as executive orders, here’s a brief roundup of those developments.

A judge blocked Donald Trump’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disenfranchised millions of voters. The president sought to unilaterally add the requirement in a 25 March executive orders. The Democratic party, as well as a slew of civil rights groups, challenged that order, arguing the president does not have the power to set the rules for federal elections. US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly agreed with that argument. She also blocked a portion of the executive order that required federal agencies to assess the citizenship of individuals applying to vote at a public assistance agency before they offered them a chance to vote. The order would have made it significantly harder to register to vote, even for eligible voters.

Meanwhile, a federal judge said the Trump administration’s attempt to make federal funding to schools conditional on them eliminating any DEI policies erodes the “foundational principles” that separates the United States from totalitarian regimes. US district judge Landya McCafferty partially blocked the Department of Education from enforcing a memo issued earlier this year that directed any institution that receives federal funding to end discrimination on the basis of race or face funding cuts.

And on immigration, a judge ordered the Trump administration to make “a good faith request” to the government of El Salvador to facilitate the return of a second man sent to a prison there back to the US, saying his deportation violated a court settlement. US district judge Stephanie Gallagher also ordered the administration not to deport other migrants covered by the settlement. She said the settlement agreement that she approved in November on behalf of thousands of migrants required immigration authorities to process the asylum application by the 20-year-old Venezuelan man, identified only as Cristian, before deporting him. The settlement applies to thousands of migrants who came to the US unaccompanied as children and have applied for asylum. While the administration argued that deporting Cristian didn’t violate the settlement agreement because he had been deemed an “alien enemy” under the Alien Enemies Act, making him ineligible for asylum. But Gallagher said the settlement applies to anyone with a pending asylum application, and not only those who are eligible for asylum. Gallagher considered only whether Cristian’s deportation violated the settlement and not whether the law was properly invoked, which is at issue in cases such as that of Kilmar Ábrego García’s.

And another judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the president’s hardline immigration crackdown. US district judge William Orrick said a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Trump’s executive order was warranted as the local jurisdictions had established that it likely unconstitutionally imposed conditions on federal funding without congressional authorization and ran afoul of the localities’ due process rights.