DOJ Orders Complete Freeze on All Civil Rights Division Cases and Enforcement

Trump’s Justice Department leadership ordered a complete freeze on all Civil Rights Division litigation and enforcement activities through internal memos sent by Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle to acting division head Kathleen Wolfe. The memos prohibited attorneys from filing “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest” until further notice. The freeze was justified as necessary to ensure “the federal government speaks with one voice in its view of the law and to ensure that the President’s appointees or designees have the opportunity to decide whether to initiate new cases.”

The directive specifically targeted police reform consent decrees negotiated under the Biden administration, ordering attorneys to notify leadership of any settlements or consent decrees finalized within the previous 90 days, stating the new administration “may wish to reconsider” such agreements. This immediately jeopardized reform agreements in Minneapolis (following George Floyd’s murder) and Louisville (following Breonna Taylor’s shooting), which had been finalized in the closing weeks of the Biden administration.

The freeze affected civil rights enforcement across multiple areas: police misconduct investigations in at least ten cities (Phoenix, Trenton, Worcester, Mount Vernon, Lexington, Louisiana State Police, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Minneapolis, and Louisville), voting rights protections, housing discrimination cases, and disability rights enforcement. Civil rights advocates warned this represented the Justice Department “abdicating its duty” to protect Americans from discrimination.

The institutional impact was severe and immediate. By May 2025, approximately 250 attorneys—roughly 70% of the Civil Rights Division’s workforce on Inauguration Day—had left or announced plans to leave. Key sections that previously employed dozens of attorneys, including the voting rights section, were reduced to bare-bones staffing. This mass exodus effectively dismantled the federal government’s primary mechanism for enforcing civil rights laws, leaving communities with documented patterns of police abuse and discrimination without federal oversight or protection.