Here are this week's cases, judges, putting a stop to Trump's plans to cut government waste

Nearly as quickly as President Donald Trump has taken action to cut out government waste in his second administration, judges have ruled in cases against such plans, putting things on hold.

The most heavily ruled-on action taken by Trump is that which ends birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. On Monday, a New Hampshire judge became the third to temporarily pause the executive order. Judge Joseph Laplante said that the plaintiffs in the case, a group of nonprofits who said members of their communities were pregnant and would be affected, were likely to suffer irreparable harm if the executive order was allowed to take effect.

After granting the injunction, Laplante said, "As a lawyer and a jurist, I think the rule of law is best served – best maintained and preserved – when excellent practitioners present their arguments to the court with all the experience and knowledge they can muster." The executive order has also been temporarily paused through judges' rulings in Washington and Maryland.

In a case brought forth by 22 state attorneys general, a federal judge in Boston, Angel Kelley, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing cuts to the National Institute of Health in those 22 states. The suit was filed in response to the NIH setting a 15 percent cap on payments for indirect costs like administrative and facility costs linked to research to universities, medical centers, and other grant recipients. A hearing in the case is set for February 21. Two other lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration over the cuts.

Also in Boston, US District Judge George A O’Toole Jr extended a temporary pause he had issued on Thursday over the Trump administration’s mass offer to buyout federal employees. After a Monday hearing, he extended the pause until he rules on a preliminary injunction. A deadline had been set for just before midnight on February 6, in which federal employees needed to decide whether to remain at their jobs or take the buyout and receive full payment until September to resign. 

Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that a federal ethics watchdog can temporarily return to his job through at least Thursday night as she considered written arguments in the case. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee who leads an independent federal agency that handles whistleblower issues and complaints regarding Hatch Act violations, sued the Trump administration after receiving an email on Friday night from the White House indicating that he was dismissed.

A Rhode Island federal judge, John J McConnell Jr, ruled on Monday that the Trump administration had defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants. The ruling stated that the administration needed to comply with the "plain text" of a ruling he issued on January 29 that was "clear and unambiguous, and there are no impediments to the Defendants’ compliance," he wrote. Attorneys for the administration appealed to the US Court of Appeals, urging the court to pause McConnell's ruling while their case is being considered. McConnell, as a private practice attorney, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrat candidates including Obama.

"Each executive order will hold up in court because every action of the Trump-Vance administration is completely lawful," said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. "Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people."