By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — A series of recent adverse court rulings have provided major impediments to some of President Donald Trump’s policies and executive actions, underscoring the federal judiciary’s increasingly lonely role in serving as a pause on the president’s effort to dramatically reshape the country.

The courts have long been a key battleground for Trump’s foes, and a flurry of litigation earlier this year jammed up some of his second term agenda as judges scrutinized – often on a fast-moving, emergency basis – cases brought over everything from his dismantling of federal agencies to his targeting of elite law firms.

The president has scored some victories in those lawsuits, thanks in part to favorable rulings from the conservative-majority Supreme Court. But many of them are still working their way through the justice system and likely will not see final resolution for some time.

Still, several high-profile rulings over the past few weeks have served as a check on Trump’s actions at a time when the Republican-controlled Congress has largely stepped aside so the president can govern as he sees fit.

“What we’re seeing in these cases is the difference between the questions courts are answering at the outset of the lawsuit and the more comprehensive questions courts are answering once issues have been fully briefed and argued,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN legal analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

“The government is losing many of these cases at this latter stage, at least in the lower courts,” Vladeck said. “The big question is how they’ll fare when these cases reach the Supreme Court. But if nothing else is clear, we’re going to find out sooner rather than later.”

Here’s a look at several recent court rulings that went against Trump.

Alien Enemies Act

In mid-March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a sweeping 18th century wartime authority, to speed up deportations of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang.

He was able to remove more than 100 migrants under the law, but a series of legal challenges brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of migrants has prevented him from using the law since.

The biggest blow came Tuesday evening when the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in a divided ruling that Trump unlawfully invoked the 1798 law, which has been invoked only three times in the nation’s history and only when the US has been in a declared war, to target a foreign gang.

The decision tees up a likely showdown at the Supreme Court, which has not yet weighed in on whether Trump went too far when he decided to lean on the law as part of his sprawling effort to quickly deport migrants.

“The Fifth Circuit was the government’s test case, and it has now forcefully rejected the administration’s view that it could use wartime authority during peacetime, but we would be surprised if the government threw in the towel now,” said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s lead counsel in the lawsuit. “The stakes could not be higher.”

Judges knock down Trump’s justification for tariffs

Last week, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, struck down many of Trump’s historic tariffs, ruling that he unlawfully leaned on emergency powers to impose the import taxes.

The decision from the Federal Circuit has been among the more closely watched this year given the tariffs’ impact on global trade and their role as a central pillar of the president’s economic plan.

The 7-4 decision said Congress, in passing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump used to set the levies, did not give the president “wide-ranging authority to impose tariffs.”

But the tariffs remain in place for now, after the court delayed implementation of its order until October. Trump has said he will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

Unlawfully using federal troops in LA

Trump’s decision to send federalized members of California’s National Guard and US Marines to the Los Angeles area in June in response to protests there over his hardline immigration policies was met with a swift legal challenge from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The case initially resulted in a favorable ruling for the Democratic governor after US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco decided that Trump unlawfully called up the guardsmen and ordered him to relinquish control of them. A federal appeals court later reversed that ruling, but litigation over how Trump was using the troops continued.

On Tuesday, Breyer decided that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been unlawfully using the troops to help carry out domestic law enforcement activities in the LA area.

The appointee of former President Bill Clinton said that evidence showed that Trump used the troops “to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.”

“In short, defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act,” Breyer wrote, referring to a 19th century law that generally prohibits the use of troops for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Trump has appealed Breyer’s latest ruling.

Brenner Fissell, the vice president of the National Institute for Military Justice and a law professor at Villanova University, said Breyer’s ruling shows that the administration’s interpretations of the Posse Comitatus Act “are not getting purchase in the judiciary.”

Attempt to end birthright citizenship

Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship has given federal courts much to chew on this year. In ruling after ruling, judges shot down his controversial policy, concluding it’s unconstitutional and blocking it on a nationwide basis.

But in June, the Supreme Court, without addressing the legality of Trump’s order, directed several lower courts to take a second look at their nationwide injunctions to ensure they weren’t overbroad.

So far, courts have stayed the course or, in some instances, issued new rulings that are keeping Trump’s policy on hold across the country.

Trump’s order said that the federal government will not “issue documents recognizing United States citizenship” to any children born on American soil to parents who were in the country unlawfully, or were in the states lawfully, but temporarily.

The Justice Department signaled last month that it is planning to soon take one or more of the cases over the birthright citizenship policy back to the Supreme Court for the justices to decide whether it’s constitutional.

Suing Maryland’s judges

As courts have frustrated Trump’s agenda, the president has increasingly tried to challenge the federal judiciary’s power more broadly.

That endeavor was on full display this summer when Trump sued Maryland’s entire federal bench in an unprecedented lawsuit that sought to limit court power in fast-moving immigration cases.

The lawsuit took aim at a rule the chief judge of the District Court of Maryland put in place that would automatically and temporarily block the Trump administration from removing an immigration detainee from the US if the detainee had gone to court to challenge their removal.

But a federal judge brought in from Virginia to oversee the case fully rejected Trump’s gambit in late August, ruling that the government lacked the legal right – known as standing – to bring the challenge and that the Maryland judges are immune from such suits brought by the executive branch.

Judge Thomas Cullen, a Trump appointee, included in his opinion a searing rebuke of the administration’s rhetoric toward judges who rule against the government.

“Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate,” the judge wrote.

The administration is appealing Cullen’s ruling.

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