“A Sobering Milestone”: Attorney General Bonta Files 100th Lawsuit Against the Trump Administration in Under Two Years

SACRAMENTO— California Attorney General Rob Bonta today marked his 100th lawsuit against the Trump Administration since it began on January 20, 2025, just 21 months ago. This regrettable milestone comes as the President continues to break our laws with a frequency and intensity surpassing even the lawlessness that characterized his first term in office. Within hours of being sworn into office, President Trump attempted to rewrite the Constitution by issuing an illegal executive order that sought to end the birthright citizenship promised under the Fourteenth Amendment. Attorney General Bonta filed California’s first lawsuit against the President less than 24 hours later and took this fight all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court — and won. In the following months, Attorney General Bonta has returned to court to stop the President’s unlawful federal funding cuts for education, research, housing, healthcare, and infrastructure; get the National Guard off our streets; and defend constitutional rights like the right to vote. All of these actions clearly exceeded the President’s authority and ignored the basic constitutional framework our founders crafted with care and precision. Attorney General Bonta's 100th lawsuit, filed today, once again challenges the Trump Administration’s undermining of the rule of law and trampling over longstanding principles of justice — seeking to block Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) policy and practice of carrying out civil immigration enforcement in and around state courthouses.

“For the 100th time since President Trump returned to office, we’re going to court. This is a sobering milestone — and a testament to the unrelenting ferociousness with which the President is willing to steamroll over the law, our Constitution, and the fundamental values of our government,” said Attorney General Bonta. “In California, we’ve been repeated targets of this Administration. He’s gone after our funding, taken over our streets, and systematically made our communities less safe. These 100 lawsuits are a symptom, a reflection of what we’re collectively up against. The President’s epidemic of lawbreaking is the disease. No one should look at these 100 cases and think this is normal. No one should look at these 100 cases and think we want to be here today. This isn’t a fight we chose. But when the President breaks the law and goes after our state, we’ll meet him in court, each and every time." 

Since January 20, 2025, President Trump and his Administration have pursued policies that have made Americans’ lives worse, not better, breaking the law 100 times in the process: 

Making Your Life Unaffordable 

For more than a year, President Trump has inflicted chaos on the American economy by imposing tariffs without the legal authority to do so, including through illegal attempts using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — attempts that were struck down by multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of International Trade. A recent analysis concluded that nearly 90% of the costs of tariffs in 2025 were paid by American consumers and businesses.

At the same time, the Trump Administration attempted to starve the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of its lawful funding, threatening catastrophic harm to hardworking families and consumer financial markets nationwide. The court rejected this move after state attorneys general took it to court, ensuring it can continue its work to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts by big corporations.

Undermining Civil Rights and Privacy

The Trump Administration has sought to accumulate and leverage massive troves of Americans’ personal sensitive data, attempting to illegally seize California’s voter rolls, Medicaid data, SNAP data, TANF data, and commercial drivers’ license data for purposes unrelated to their original intent like immigration enforcement and for purposes, concerningly, still unclear. California will not let programs designed to ensure children do not go hungry and to help needy families get back on their feet be exploited to fuel mass surveillance efforts.

The Trump Administration has sought to use federal funding as a bludgeon to compel states to adopt its hateful and ideological agenda — seeking to condition funding for school lunches, SNAP, and other programs that provide a critical lifeline to vulnerable communities on states’ adoption of its policy preferences around immigration, gender ideology, transgender athletes, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Making Our Communities Less Safe

While President Trump claimed he’d go after the worst of the worst, instead, he’s advanced policies that would have made our communities less safe, not more. Since taking office, the Trump Administration has tried to shut down a program that helps communities prepare for and mitigate the risks from disasters in advance, reallocate fundingCalifornia usesto prevent and respond to acts of terrorism based on our adoption of policies the Trump Administration does not like; and impose illegal immigration enforcement conditions on emergency preparedness and crime victims grants.

Last year, Attorney General Bonta, alongside Governor Gavin Newsom, filed a lawsuit challenging the President’s unlawful deployment of California National Guard troops, securing multiple court orders blocking their federalization and deployment to Los Angeles and Portland, and finding violations of the Posse Comitatus Act. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in a related case, Illinois v. Trump, rejecting the Trump Administration’s nearly limitless conception of presidential authority to federalize the National Guard and the activities those troops can engage in, the Trump Administration officially withdrew the remaining troops in California and ended their deployment. 

Attacking the Right to Vote

President Trump has been relentless in his attempts to restrict the right to vote, sow distrust in the integrity of our elections, and interfere with states’ constitutional authority to administer elections. Attorney General Bonta repeatedly stopped these efforts in their tracks — ensuring that November’s elections are business as usual in California.  

Taking Funding Away from Our Schools and Kids

The Trump Administration has tried to stop $4.9 billion in federal education funding from flowing to California not one, not two, but three times. California has met them in court each time — ensuring the Trump Administration’s reckless actions don’t impact the educational futures of our children. 

In his first month in office, President Trump also sought to pump the brakes on cutting-edge medical and public health research at universities and research institutions across the state and country — cuts that were stopped, permanently, through multistate litigation.

Rolling Back Energy and Environmental Progress 

The President has spent the past 21 months writing a love letter to his fossil fuel friends — at the cost of California’s environment, public health, and clean energy future. He’s wasted taxpayer money on unnecessary and unlawful buyouts of offshore wind projects. He’s refused to implement lifesaving standards for fine particulate matter — commonly known as “soot.” And he’s tried to roll back California’s decades-old authority to set vehicle emissions standards more stringent than the federal government’s. 

Ripping Away Healthcare and Social Services

As a society, we are judged by how we treat our neighbors in need. President Trump doesn’t like California’s policies — and he’s tried to punish us for them. The Trump Administration sought to freeze $5 billion in funding for childcare and family assistance programs in California, putting at risk the ability of working parents to stay in their jobs and support their families. It refused to pay out SNAP benefits last November — appealing all the way up to the Supreme Court — despite multiple courts telling the Administration it could, and in fact, should, and tried to punish states for taking steps to fund these benefits. 

Targeting California’s Immigrant Communities

The President has embarked on an indiscriminate and inhuman mass detention and deportation campaign — instilling fear in California communities as ICE targets not criminals, but lawful U.S. citizens, green card holders, asylum seekers, and other hardworking contributors to our communities and economy. California has declined to use our limited resources for federal immigration enforcement, a decision that has been upheld by the Ninth Circuit. Despite this, the President has repeatedly attempted to condition transportation, crime victims, emergency services, and homeland security funding on California’s participation in immigration enforcement. These attempts have been resoundingly rejected by the courts.

…Through it All, California is Standing Strong

In just under 21 months, Attorney General Bonta has filed 100 lawsuits on behalf of California, leading or co-leading 67 of them, and separately filed more than 130 amicus briefs in support of other litigation against the Trump Administration. In this period, Attorney General Bonta has secured 57 orders granting early relief, 26 final orders, and in an additional nine cases, the Trump Administration has backed down before the case was heard on the merits. Attorney General Bonta has also celebrated major wins at the U.S. Supreme Court, protecting the right to vote and the right to birthright citizenship, defending California’s redistricting efforts, getting the National Guard off of California’s streets, and blocking the President’s illegal tariffs.

You can find more on the California Department of Justice’s federal accountability work at oag.ca.gov/federal-accountability-dashboard.