The papers each bore two names, one unknown, the other ubiquitous, facing off across the letter V. The V was important. It meant that in America, anyone could sue the president of the United States and hope to win.

In New York, there was Darweesh v. Trump. In Colorado, Hagig v. Trump. There was also Ali v. Trump, Zadeh v. Trump, Bayani v. Trump, Albaldawi v. Trump.

This was the same America whose president had declared a ban on travelers from predominantly Muslim countries that trapped people in airports and interrupted lives. And the same America where an Ali or a Hagig could do what, back home, would have been the unthinkable: call a lawyer; stop the president.

“It was never my intention to go against the president of the United States,” said Mohamed Iye, a Somali-born American citizen whose Somali wife and two American daughters were stranded in Nairobi after President Trump’s first travel order prevented them from joining him in Minnesota. “I was just following the law and doing everything the way it’s in the books. And it came to this.”