Supreme Court

Nationwide Injunctions, a Crucial Check on Presidential Power, Are Not Dead Yet

Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden asked the Supreme Court to abolish nationwide injunctions, which allow federal judges to stop a federal policy from going into effect.

Damon Root | From the May 2026 issue

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Add Reason to Google

Media Contact & Reprint Requests

(Illustration: Aaron Schwartz - Pool via CNP / MEGA / Newscom/RSSIL/Newscom/Gary Blakeley/Dreamstime)

You may have heard that the U.S. Supreme Court killed off the practice of nationwide injunctions, the practice where a federal judge stops a federal policy from going into effect everywhere in the country while a single lawsuit challenging that policy plays out in court.

As a result, you may think that President Donald Trump is now free to implement his national agenda of immigration crackdowns without facing any more interference from pesky lower court judges, who have enjoined such presidential policies in the past.

That was certainly how the White House characterized the Supreme Court's June 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, which lifted several nationwide injunctions against Trump's executive order purporting to abolish the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship for millions of U.S.-born children.

"Today's decision restores the proper separation of powers between the branches of government," declared White House Counsel David Warrington. "Ending nationwide injunctions is a tremendous victory for the American people and the rule of law."

But Warrington's statement did not exactly match the facts. It would have been more accurate to say that the Supreme Court limited the use of nationwide injunctions. And Warrington might have added that the Supreme Court left the courthouse doors wide open for federal judges to block the president's actions nationwide through other comparable legal mechanisms, such as national class-action lawsuits.

Here's how you know that Warrington missed the mark. Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship was reblocked from going into effect nationwide by a federal trial judge barely two weeks after the CASA decision came down, and it has remained so blocked ever since.

© Reason.com