Federal Judges Block Trump: Immigration Crackdown, Tunnel Funding, IRS Brawl

Paul Riverbank, 2/7/2026Federal judges thwart Trump on immigration, tax privacy, and tunnel funding, reshaping executive power boundaries.

The logic behind the government’s request, according to officials, hinged on efficiency. If someone paid taxes, they reasoned, but wasn’t a legal resident and had never been flagged for criminal issues, tax returns might be the only bread crumb trail. The judge saw it differently. For her, the danger went beyond clerical errors; she worried about the very foundation of American privacy, warning that such practices risk morphing into a crude surveillance dragnet. “Giving ICE this unchecked authority...could create a mass surveillance apparatus,” she wrote. Just as concerning, she added, was the possibility that entire communities might retreat from the tax system—an ironic twist, considering the government’s interest in compliance—simply out of fear.

One ruling rarely comes without a backstory. Just a few months before, Talwani had already made headlines for blocking a separate federal move—this time, an attempt to roll back humanitarian protections for migrants from countries battered by crisis. She followed it up by stopping a proposed Medicaid cut to Planned Parenthood clinics, invoking the vulnerability of those who would be hardest hit. With each case, Talwani’s reasoning circles the same central theme: the law, she says, must shield—not target—the powerless.

Further down the Amtrak tracks, another legal battle unfolded. This time, in the echoing halls of a Manhattan courthouse. The Gateway tunnel project—a massive, $16 billion answer to the Northeast’s aging train routes—teetered on the brink of shutdown after the administration froze its funding. In stepped Judge Jeannette Vargas, who put her foot down. The states of New York and New Jersey argued that stopping work would jeopardize nearly $20 billion in economic activity, not to mention the careers and livelihoods of some 95,000 workers. Vargas didn’t need much convincing; she saw the harm in delay, ruling that the public had far too much at stake to jeopardize the tunnel’s completion. The Department of Transportation countered that the states could cover the gap themselves, but Vargas was unmoved. With the outcome still entangled in court, the funding remains in limbo.

These courtroom dramas, while sprawling, pale against the strangeness of the latest legal tangle: President Trump, now suing the federal government—the very entity he leads—over the leak of his private tax documents. The case has left both legal scholars and Washington insiders scratching their heads. Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor, is sitting in prison for making confidential tax returns public. Trump, meanwhile, is demanding $10 billion in damages, vowing that every penny would go to charity—a bold promise he’s repeated on the rally circuit with characteristic bravado. “I hereby give myself $1 billion,” he joked to supporters, only to assure them later that all proceeds would benefit, in his words, “good charities.”

But for all the spectacle, this case is beset by what scholars call a fundamental clash: is it really a lawsuit if the president can, in theory, dictate its outcome? As Senator Thom Tillis wondered aloud, the optics are more than a little odd—can a president sue his own administration with a straight face? There’s also the practical matter that any payout would come from taxpayers rather than some faceless bureaucratic ledger. Critics like Representative Adam Schiff have seized on the spectacle, pledging to look for ways to prevent a payout drawn from public funds. As for Trump’s defense team, they stick to a now-familiar line: the IRS failed its duty by not preventing the rogue action of one wayward employee.

Three cases. Three judges. All threading the needle on where executive power ends and court authority begins. The answer, for now, emerges not as a grand principle, but in a patchwork of rulings—each reframing, in its own way, the limits of government influence. It leaves Americans and their lawmakers with a fundamental question: in the ongoing contest over privacy, power, and public trust, who will be the last word?

It was a drizzly morning in Boston when Judge Indira Talwani delivered a decision that seems destined to ripple through federal agencies. Her ruling zeroed in on a policy from the Trump administration that allowed government officials to funnel confidential tax data straight to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Talwani didn’t mince words: letting ICE comb through federal tax and Social Security records wasn’t just a technical overstep. She called it a “method ripe for abuse,” citing the real example of a Minnesota man—no different from millions of other naturalized Americans—who found himself wrongfully detained.The logic behind the government’s request, according to officials, hinged on efficiency. If someone paid taxes, they reasoned, but wasn’t a legal resident and had never been flagged for criminal issues, tax returns might be the only bread crumb trail. The judge saw it differently. For her, the danger went beyond clerical errors; she worried about the very foundation of American privacy, warning that such practices risk morphing into a crude surveillance dragnet. “Giving ICE this unchecked authority...could create a mass surveillance apparatus,” she wrote. Just as concerning, she added, was the possibility that entire communities might retreat from the tax system—an ironic twist, considering the government’s interest in compliance—simply out of fear.One ruling rarely comes without a backstory. Just a few months before, Talwani had already made headlines for blocking a separate federal move—this time, an attempt to roll back humanitarian protections for migrants from countries battered by crisis. She followed it up by stopping a proposed Medicaid cut to Planned Parenthood clinics, invoking the vulnerability of those who would be hardest hit. With each case, Talwani’s reasoning circles the same central theme: the law, she says, must shield—not target—the powerless.Further down the Amtrak tracks, another legal battle unfolded. This time, in the echoing halls of a Manhattan courthouse. The Gateway tunnel project—a massive, $16 billion answer to the Northeast’s aging train routes—teetered on the brink of shutdown after the administration froze its funding. In stepped Judge Jeannette Vargas, who put her foot down. The states of New York and New Jersey argued that stopping work would jeopardize nearly $20 billion in economic activity, not to mention the careers and livelihoods of some 95,000 workers. Vargas didn’t need much convincing; she saw the harm in delay, ruling that the public had far too much at stake to jeopardize the tunnel’s completion. The Department of Transportation countered that the states could cover the gap themselves, but Vargas was unmoved. With the outcome still entangled in court, the funding remains in limbo.These courtroom dramas, while sprawling, pale against the strangeness of the latest legal tangle: President Trump, now suing the federal government—the very entity he leads—over the leak of his private tax documents. The case has left both legal scholars and Washington insiders scratching their heads. Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor, is sitting in prison for making confidential tax returns public. Trump, meanwhile, is demanding $10 billion in damages, vowing that every penny would go to charity—a bold promise he’s repeated on the rally circuit with characteristic bravado. “I hereby give myself $1 billion,” he joked to supporters, only to assure them later that all proceeds would benefit, in his words, “good charities.”But for all the spectacle, this case is beset by what scholars call a fundamental clash: is it really a lawsuit if the president can, in theory, dictate its outcome? As Senator Thom Tillis wondered aloud, the optics are more than a little odd—can a president sue his own administration with a straight face? There’s also the practical matter that any payout would come from taxpayers rather than some faceless bureaucratic ledger. Critics like Representative Adam Schiff have seized on the spectacle, pledging to look for ways to prevent a payout drawn from public funds. As for Trump’s defense team, they stick to a now-familiar line: the IRS failed its duty by not preventing the rogue action of one wayward employee.Three cases. Three judges. All threading the needle on where executive power ends and court authority begins. The answer, for now, emerges not as a grand principle, but in a patchwork of rulings—each reframing, in its own way, the limits of government influence. It leaves Americans and their lawmakers with a fundamental question: in the ongoing contest over privacy, power, and public trust, who will be the last word?