This is probably a dumb/basic question but I just don’t understand the basics of how, if a judge orders Trump and his administration to return mistakenly deported people, he just says no and nothing happens. He also was told to unfreeze funding, again they just don’t do it. Those are just 2 examples.
If I was ordered by the court/judge to,for example, pay child support monthly, or there was an order for me to show up to court on a certain date, I couldn’t just say no and move on with nothing happening to me.
Is it as basic as, he’s the president and can get away with it and every other president seemingly had some basic moral compass and stopped when the courts said no? It just seems like there should be more happening just from the blatant disregard for ignoring orders.
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If you were ordered by a judge to do something and didn’t do it, you would get arrested.
They’re not going to arrest the president.
In theory, they could punish lower level federal employees whose job would be to respond to these court orders, but they would need to do so in a way such that Trump can’t just pardon everyone, and all of the standard ways to punish people would involve both the DoJ and the federal criminal code. And they would also need to do so in a way such that the president wouldn’t be able to swoop in and fire whoever shows signs of compliance and replace them with someone willing to say no.
Presidents can ignore court decisions because they are the head of the executive branch and it’s their decision on whether to enforce the court decisions/orders.
The ultimate check on a president is the people. If the decisions the president makes to ignore court decisions are deeply unpopular and people care about it, then he’ll lose congressional majorities substantial and find his power checked.
If ignoring the court is popular enough, then it make actually help improve the president’s standing with the poeple and even increase his Congressional Support.
He’s the president, and the judiciary does not have an enforcement mechanism if the executive refuses to enforce their rulings.