Helpful analysis: Trump’s Legal Strategy Has a Name - The Atlantic.

The name is “court-baiting.” The game is to aggrandize the executive branch at the expense of the courts by forcing the courts either to approve (directly aggrandizing the executive) or disapprove (relatively aggrandizing the executive by railing against the “undemocratic” courts) popular but illegal practices.

At present, those practices involve immigration — Trump’s strongest hand.

The success of this game makes me think that we need a rudimentary civics test for voting, including the question “Does the constitution forbid some laws or practices that might be very, very popular?”