There is nothing that Donald Trump covets more or fears the loss of with greater dread than public support. It is his cudgel, his life vest, his escape route, his Trump card. Public support is important to any elected official but to a President with a felony conviction and a penchant for high-risk behavior it’s a life raft.

No Donald trump does not adhere to the rulings of the courts, particularly as it relates to immigration and deportation policy. He and his functionaries scoff any ruling that would truncate or challenge their unquestioned power. Either by ignoring the orders outright or manufacturing a flimsy excuse circumventing the orders.

When Trump speaks he speaks to his supporters, not the press or the courts. His statements are designed solely for the purpose of broadening public support for his policies, even when those polices are unlawful. Particularly when those policies come under scrutiny from the Congressional or Judicial branches.

The statement below is a roadmap to logic of ignoring the courts and playing to the crowd:

“We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years,” he wrote. “We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of Illegals we are sending out of the Country. Such a thing is not possible to do. What a ridiculous situation we are in.”

- Donald Trump, Truth Social

For the record, the constitution makes no exception in its due process provisions for volume or presidential discretion. The fundamental rights of those accused by the government are guarantees, not suggestions.

Below in a post from BlueSky, reposted from X the government in the court filing document attached admits and tries to justify the warrantless arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Bear in mind that Mahmoud Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the United States.

Late Thursday afternoon it became clear that Trump administration had sent another four detainees to the CECOT prison facility in El Salvador. Ignoring their rights to due process and a standing court order barring them from doing so. This from ABC News:

”The Trump administration is acknowledging it deported four noncitizens to El Salvador despite a court order barring the removal of people to countries other than their place of origin without an opportunity to raise concerns about their safety.”

In the latest example the government’s novel rationale was the Department of Defense, not the Department of Homeland Security actually deported the detainees. Which in legal terms is called a fig-leaf.

Look for the Trump administration to make a politically based argument rather than a legal one in defense of ignoring yet another court order.