How Often Have Presidents Defied Court Orders?

In 2025, the United States deported 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego-Garcia to his home country of El Salvador, and it left questions regarding the power dynamic between the United States executive and judicial branches. Abrego-Garcia entered the U.S. illegally in 2012 and "freely admitted" to doing so, per a Prince George's County Police Department report. He was deported in March 2025, District Judge Paula Xinis ordered him returned to the U.S., and the Trump administration ignored her. Now, Abrego-Garcia's attorneys are pushing for the administration to be held in contempt of court, and Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen even paid him a visit.

This messy situation is just the most recent instance of conflict between various U.S. governmental branches. But while they regularly test their limits against each other and have done so since the founding of the country about 250 years ago, outright defiance of court orders has been rare. President Richard Nixon in 1974, for instance, resisted releasing incriminating tapes during the Watergate scandal, citing "executive privilege, but he eventually complied (one of the many questionable things about his presidency). Back at the start of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, Abraham Lincolm imprisoned alleged saboteurs without any due process. But neither these instances, nor others, involved refuting direct court orders.

Besides Abrego-Garcia's case, there've only been two instances of a U.S. president defying court orders. That means that on average, this only happens once every 124 years. The first incident came early on in America's history when Thomas Jefferson ignored a court ruling regarding the Embargo Act of 1807. The next time came in 1832, when Andrew Jackson ignored an order regarding the removal of Cherokee tribespeople from Georgia.

A mere 31 years after the United States became its own country in 1776, President Thomas Jefferson — who'd played a key role in the American Revolution — made a bold, if wrongheaded move. During the Napoleonic Wars (1801 to 1815), British ships took to seizing American merchant vessels that had nothing to do with the conflict. Maybe it was out of retaliation for French assistance during the recent Revolution, maybe it was out of fear of the U.S. secretly helping France, or maybe it was for some other reason entirely.

In response, Jefferson pushed Congress to draft the Embargo Act of 1807. The legislation completely banned all U.S. exports to all nations across the world — full stop, no exceptions. The act also restricted imports from Britain. While it might seem clear that this decision couldn't do much but harm the American economy and its people, Jefferson considered it a kind of punishment for Britain, so valuable were American goods. Naturally, perishable goods in a pre-refrigeration age rotted, and sailors across the entire Eastern Seaboard had nothing to do.

But interestingly, none of these happenings involved defying court orders. That came later when Supreme Court appointee William Johnson ruled that Jefferson had exceeded his presidential authority in pushing for the act. Jefferson ignored the ruling and had the Attorney General draft a rebuttal and pass it to the press. He also ordered customs officials to stand by the embargo. Johnson rebutted, as well, but to no effect. The Embargo Act lasted until Jefferson left office in 1809. 

The second instance of a U.S. commander-in-chief defying court orders came shortly after Thomas Jefferson's 1807 kerfuffle, but it dates back to 1791. Back then, the U.S. signed its Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the Cherokee Nation in an attempt to forge "permanent peace and friendship," as Yale Law School quotes. Basically, the treaty promised to respect Cherokee sovereignty over its lands (even those within U.S. state borders), and it dubbed case-by-case treaties the "Supreme Law of the Land." 

Come the 1820s and '30s, though, and the Georgia state government set out to consume Cherokee territory. In 1827, the Cherokee drafted their own constitution, claiming self-sovereignty over their land, and the Georgia legislature responded by annexing it. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Treaties and the Removal Act that offered to swap eastern native lands for lands further west. But in reality, it gave presidents like Andrew Jackson the capability to nullify earlier treaties like the Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

In 1832's Worcester v. Georgia, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that native peoples like the Cherokee constituted "distinct, independent political communities retaining their original natural rights," per the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Come 1838, Jackson ordered federal troops to go into Cherokee lands and forcibly remove them in direct opposition to court ruling. This is what caused the infamous and horrific Trail of Tears, when over 4,000 Cherokee died during a forced march westward.