Supreme Court on Trump v Casa: Universal Injunctions

Source: SupremeCourt.gov
Type: court-document

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JUSTICE BARRETT delivered the opinion of the Court.

The United States has filed three emergency applications challenging the scope of a federal court’s authority to enjoin Government officials from enforcing an executive order. Traditionally, courts issued injunctions prohibiting executive officials from enforcing a challenged law or policy only against the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The injunctions before us today reflect a more recent development: district courts asserting the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone. These injunctions—known as “universal injunctions”—likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. We therefore grant the Government’s applications to partially stay the injunctions entered below.

I
The applications before us concern three overlapping, universal preliminary injunctions entered by three different District Courts. See 763 F. Supp. 3d 723 (Md. 2025), appeal pending, No. 25–1153 (CA4); 765 F. Supp. 3d 1142 (WD Wash. 2025), appeal pending, No. 25–807 (CA9); Doe v. Trump, 766 F. Supp. 3d 266 (Mass. 2025), appeal pending, No. 25–1170 (CA1). The plaintiffs—individuals, organizations, and States—sought to enjoin the implementation and enforcement of President Trump’s Executive Order No. 14160.2 See Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, 90 Fed. Reg. 8449 (2025). The Executive Order identifies circumstances in which a person born in the United States is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof ” and is thus not recognized as an American citizen. See ibid. Specifically, it sets forth the “policy of the United States” to no longer issue or accept documentation of citizenship in two scenarios: “(1) when [a] person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when [a] person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.” Ibid. The Executive Order also provides for a 30-day ramp-up period. During that time, the order directs executive agencies to develop and issue public guidance regarding the order’s implementation. See id., at 8449–8450.

The plaintiffs filed suit, alleging that the Executive Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, §1, as well as §201 of the Nationality Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1138 (codified at 8 U. S. C. §1401). In each case, the District Court concluded that the Executive Order is likely unlawful and entered a universal preliminary injunction barring various executive officials from applying the policy to anyone in the country. And in each case, the Court of Appeals denied the Government’s request to stay the sweeping relief. See 2025 WL 654902 (CA4, Feb. 28, 2025); 2025 WL 553485 (CA9, Feb. 19, 2025); 131 F. 4th 27 (CA1 2025).

The Government has now filed three nearly identical applications seeking to partially stay the universal preliminary injunctions and limit them to the parties. See Application for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A884; Application for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A885; Application for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A886.3 The applications do not raise—and thus we do not address—the question whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act. The issue before us is one of remedy: whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.

II
The question whether Congress has granted federal courts the authority to universally enjoin the enforcement of an executive or legislative policy plainly warrants our review, as Members of this Court have repeatedly emphasized. See, e.g., McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop, 604 U. S. , (2025) (G ORSUCH, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., at 1) (“I would … take this case now to resolve definitively the question whether a district court may issue universal injunctive relief ”); Labrador v. Poe, 601 U. S. , – (2024) (GORSUCH, J., joined by THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., at 7–8) (“[T]he propriety of universal injunctive relief [is] a question of great significance that has been in need of the Court’s attention for some time”); Griffin v. HM Florida-ORL, LLC, 601 U. S. , (2023) (statement of KAVANAUGH, J., joined by BARRETT, J., except as to footnote 1, respecting denial of application for stay) (slip op., at 3) (Universal injunctions present “an important question that could warrant our review in the future”); Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667, 713 (2018) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (“If [universal injunctions’] popularity continues, this Court must address their legality”). On multiple occasions, and across administrations, the Solicitor General has asked us to consider the propriety of this expansive remedy. See, e.g., Application for Stay of Injunction in McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc., O. T. 2024, No. 24A653 (Biden administration); Brief for Petitioners in Trump v. Hawaii, O. T. 2017, No. 17–965 (first Trump administration).

It is easy to see why. By the end of the Biden administration, we had reached “a state of affairs where almost every major presidential act [was] immediately frozen by a federal district court.” W. Baude & S. Bray, Comment, Proper Parties, Proper Relief, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 153, 174 (2023). The trend has continued: During the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, district courts issued approximately 25 universal injunctions. Congressional Research Service, J. Lampe, Nationwide Injunctions in the First Hundred Days of the Second Trump Administration 1 (May 16, 2025). As the number of universal injunctions has increased, so too has the importance of the issue.

III
A
The Government is likely to succeed on the merits of its argument regarding the scope of relief. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 434 (2009) (holding that for a stay application to be granted, the applicant must make “ ‘a strong showing that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits’ ”). A universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits … in equity,” §11, 1 Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442 (4th ed. 2024). Though flexible, this equitable authority is not freewheeling. We have held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S. 308, 319 (1999); see also, e.g., Payne v. Hook, 7 Wall. 425, 430 (1869) (“The equity jurisdiction conferred on the Federal courts is the same that the High Court of Chancery in England possesses”). We must therefore ask whether universal injunctions are sufficiently “analogous” to the relief issued “ ‘by the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act.’ ” Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 318–319 (quoting A. Dobie, Handbook of Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure 660 (1928)).

The answer is no: Neither the universal injunction nor any analogous form of relief was available in the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the founding. Equity offered a mechanism for the Crown “to secure justice where it would not be secured by the ordinary and existing processes of law.” G. Adams, The Origin of English Equity, 16 Colum. L. Rev. 87, 91 (1916). This “judicial prerogative of the King” thus extended to “those causes which the ordinary judges were incapable of determining.” 1 J. Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence §31, p. 27 (1881). Eventually, the Crown instituted the “practice of delegating the cases” that “came before” the judicial prerogative “to the chancellor for his sole decision.” Id., §34, at 28. This “became the common mode of dealing with such controversies.” Ibid.

Of importance here, suits in equity were brought by and against individual parties. Indeed, the “general rule in Equity [was] that all persons materially interested in the suit were to be made parties to it.” J. Story, Commentaries on Equity Pleadings §72, p. 74 (2d ed. 1840) (Story). Injunctions were no exception; there were “sometimes suits to restrain the actions of particular officers against particular plaintiffs.” S. Bray, Multiple Chancellors: Reforming the National Injunction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 417, 425 (2017) (Bray, Multiple Chancellors) (emphasis added). And in certain cases, the “Attorney General could be a defendant.” Ibid. The Chancellor’s remedies were also typically party specific. “As a general rule, an injunction” could not bind one who was not a “party to the cause.” F. Calvert, Suits in Equity 120 (2d ed. 1847); see also Iveson v. Harris, 7 Ves. 251, 257, 32 Eng. Rep. 102, 104 (1802) (“[Y]ou cannot have an injunction except against a party to the suit”). Suffice it to say, then, under longstanding equity practice in England, there was no remedy “remotely like a national injunction.” Bray, Multiple Chancellors 425.

Nor did founding-era courts of equity in the United States chart a different course. See 1 Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence §41, at 33–34. If anything, the approach traditionally taken by federal courts cuts against the existence of such a sweeping remedy. Consider Scott v. Donald, where the plaintiff successfully challenged the constitutionality of a law on which state officials had relied to confiscate alcohol that the plaintiff kept for personal use. See 165 U. S. 107, 109 (1897) (statement of case); id., at 111–112 (opinion of the Court). Although the plaintiff sought an injunction barring enforcement of the law against both himself and anyone else “whose rights [were] infringed and threatened” by it, this Court permitted only a narrower decree between “the parties named as plaintiff and defendants in the bill.” Id., at 115–117.

In the ensuing decades, we consistently rebuffed requests for relief that extended beyond the parties. See, e.g., Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U. S. 113, 123 (1940) (“The benefits of [the court’s] injunction” improperly extended “to bidders throughout the Nation who were not parties to any proceeding, who were not before the court[,] and who had sought no relief ”); cf. Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 487–489 (1923) (concluding that the Court lacked authority to issue “preventive relief ” that would apply to people who “suffe[r] in some indefinite way in common with people generally”); Bray, Multiple Chancellors 433 (explaining that the Frothingham analysis “intertwines concepts of equity, remedies, and the judicial power”). As Justice Nelson put it while riding circuit, “[t]here is scarcely a suit at law, or in equity, … in which a general statute is interpreted, that does not involve a question in which other parties are interested.” Cutting v. Gilbert, 6 F. Cas. 1079, 1080 (No. 3,519) (CC SDNY 1865). But to allow all persons subject to the statute to be treated as parties to a lawsuit “would confound the established order of judicial proceedings.” Ibid.

Our early refusals to grant relief to nonparties are consistent with the party-specific principles that permeate our understanding of equity. “[N]either declaratory nor injunctive relief,” we have said, “can directly interfere with enforcement of contested statutes or ordinances except with respect to the particular federal plaintiffs.” Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 931 (1975); see also Gregory v. Stetson, 133 U. S. 579, 586 (1890) (“It is an elementary principle that a court cannot adjudicate directly upon a person’s right without having him either actually or constructively before it. This principle is fundamental”); Baude, 137 Harv. L. Rev., at 168 (noting the “party-specific understanding of what equitable remedies do”).

In fact, universal injunctions were not a feature of federalcourt litigation until sometime in the 20th century. See Bray, Multiple Chancellors 448–452 (discussing various rationales for the birth of the universal injunction); see also Application in No. 24A884, at 17–18. The D. C. Circuit issued what some regard as the first universal injunction in 1963. See Wirtz v. Baldor Elec. Co., 337 F. 2d 518, 535 (enjoining the Secretary of Labor “with respect to the entire [electric motors and generators] industry,” not just the named plaintiffs to the lawsuit). Yet such injunctions remained rare until the turn of the 21st century, when their use gradually accelerated. See Bray, Multiple Chancellors 439–443 (referencing Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), and Harlem Valley Transp. Assn. v. Stafford, 360 F. Supp. 1057 (SDNY 1973)). One study identified approximately 127 universal injunctions issued between 1963 and 2023. See District Court Reform: Nationwide Injunctions, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 1701, 1705 (2024). Ninety-six of them—over three quarters—were issued during the administrations of President George W. Bush, President Obama, President Trump, and President Biden. Ibid.

The bottom line? The universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history. Its absence from 18th- and 19th-century equity practice settles the question of judicial authority. See Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 318–319. That the absence continued into the 20th century renders any claim of historical pedigree still more implausible. Even during the “deluge of constitutional litigation that occurred in the wake of Ex parte Young, throughout the Lochner Era, and at the dawn of the New Deal,” universal injunctions were nowhere to be found. M. Morley, Disaggregating the History of Nationwide Injunctions: A Response to Professor Sohoni, 72 Ala. L. Rev. 239, 252 (2020) (footnotes omitted). Had federal courts believed themselves to possess the tool, surely they would not have let it lay idle.

Faced with this timeline, the principal dissent accuses us of “misunderstand[ing] the nature of equity” as being “fr[ozen] in amber … at the time of the Judiciary Act.” Post, at 29 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). Not so. We said it before, see supra, at 5, and say it again: “[E]quity is flexible.” Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 322. At the same time, its “flexibility is confined within the broad boundaries of traditional equitable relief.” Ibid. A modern device need not have an exact historical match, but under Grupo Mexicano, it must have a founding-era antecedent. And neither the universal injunction nor a sufficiently comparable predecessor was available from a court of equity at the time of our country’s inception. See id., at 333. Because the universal injunction lacks a historical pedigree, it falls outside the bounds of a federal court’s equitable authority under the Judiciary Act. See id., at 318–319.

B
Respondents raise several counterarguments, which the principal dissent echoes. First, they insist that the universal injunction has a sufficient historical analogue: a decree resulting from a bill of peace. Second, they maintain that universal injunctions are consistent with the principle that a court of equity may fashion complete relief for the parties. Third, they argue that universal injunctions serve important policy objectives.

Events Citing This Source

Event	Date	Category
Trump v CASA Nationwide Injunctions Barred	Jun 27, 2025	Erosion of Democratic Norms

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