This little-known law is a key reason Trump's agenda keeps facing legal defeats.

Lawsuits against Trump’s policies raise significant constitutional issues while also relying on a law that mandates the government to follow proper procedures when making policy changes. 

Feb. 12, 2025, 4:00 PM GMT+6

WASHINGTON — Lawyers challenging President Donald Trump's expansive use of executive power are once again turning to a familiar legal tool: the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a federal law that is both obscure and frequently invoked.

While many of the lawsuits challenging Trump’s controversial policies—such as ending birthright citizenship and dismantling federal agencies—raise significant constitutional questions, they also argue that Trump failed to follow the procedural requirements laid out by the 1946 law.

Trump encountered this problem during his first term, with several cases reaching the Supreme Court, and it seems possible that he may face similar challenges again.

The APA, as it’s commonly known, allows courts to strike down federal agency actions that are deemed "arbitrary and capricious," which includes cases where the agencies fail to explain the reasons behind changes in policy.

In what has frustrated Trump and his administration, judges have issued multiple orders temporarily halting certain policies, including freezes on federal funding and significant staff reductions. These rulings are often in the early stages, lacking full legal reasoning.

One of Trump’s first legal setbacks in his second term—concerning a memo from the Office of Management and Budget freezing funds across the board—was based partly on the APA. The administration rescinded the memo, but legal battles persist.

A lawyer involved in one of these cases explained: "The Trump administration is moving so quickly and with so little justification, trying to disrupt as much as possible, as fast as possible. These actions are inherently arbitrary and capricious under the APA."

One example is a lawsuit over Trump’s attempt to reduce funding for biomedical research. A coalition of states argued that the move violated the APA in several ways, claiming that the administration failed to explain the reasons for the policy shift and ignored the data that justified the current funding levels. A judge blocked the policy on Monday.

On Tuesday, a judge again invoked the APA when ruling that the administration likely violated the law by removing medical data webpages relied upon by healthcare professionals.

Additionally, a lawsuit filed by workers at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last week, seeking to prevent the furloughing of hundreds of staff members, raised APA claims. The union lawyers argued that the dissolution of USAID was "arbitrary and capricious" in multiple ways.

A judge granted the unions’ request in part on Friday, and another USAID-related case filed on Tuesday by contractors whose funding was cut included similar arguments. The government had failed to "explain why a comprehensive, undifferentiated freeze was necessary" or why a more targeted approach could not have been adopted, according to the lawsuit.

The APA has been a consistent challenge for Trump. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration did not provide a valid reason for adding a citizenship question to the census. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the explanation given was "more of a distraction" than a reasoned justification.

A year later, the Court found that the administration failed to properly consider various factors when attempting to end the Obama-era policy protecting Dreamers from deportation. It deemed the action "arbitrary and capricious" under the APA.

According to Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, the Trump administration’s errors in these cases were "sloppy," and courts didn’t look favorably upon that. However, he also noted that early missteps do not necessarily predict how the courts will ultimately rule. For example, the Supreme Court later upheld a revised version of the Trump administration’s travel ban after its original, broader policy was scaled back.

"The fact they're sloppy out of the gate doesn't tell us how the courts will ultimately resolve it," Adler said.

Trump is far from the only president to face challenges under the APA. Judges have routinely invoked the law to strike down agency actions across various issues, including environmental and consumer protections, which agencies sometimes take years to review.

During the Biden administration, for example, a Texas federal judge struck down an immigration enforcement policy prioritizing the deportation of violent criminals. Judge Drew Tipton found that the administration had failed to consider evidence about recidivism and abscondment risks among immigrants with criminal records, making the policy "arbitrary and capricious."

Despite a long history of courts faulting presidents under the APA, Trump allies—including billionaire Elon Musk—have harshly criticized the judiciary’s rulings, echoing the president’s previous sentiments about the courts. Some worry that such criticism could lead to defiance of court orders.

“These unlawful injunctions are a continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Tuesday.