Despite the government shutdown, federal courts around the country have remained open and allowed the wheels of justice to keep turning in criminal cases.
But many civil cases have come to a halt because the Justice Department doesn’t have enough attorneys working to handle them.
Judges have granted the government’s requests for delays in an array of cases, including a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s asylum ban on immigrants who illegally cross the southern border.
Some judges have pushed back against the government.
In at least five lawsuits filed over the 2020 census, judges have denied the government’s requests for delays, including a lawsuit alleging the Trump administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the census is aimed at undercounting minorities and immigrants.