BREAKING: Supreme Court Restricts National Injunctions in Trump Birthright Citizenship Case

SCOTUS ends era of universal injunctions in landmark Trump immigration case.

WASHINGTON — In a significant ruling on judicial authority, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday limited the power of federal courts to issue sweeping “universal” injunctions, concluding they likely exceed what Congress authorized. The decision stems from lawsuits challenging President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order No. 14160, which restricts birthright citizenship for certain U.S.-born children.

The 6–3 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc. centered not on the constitutionality of the executive order itself, but on the scope of the relief granted by lower courts. Those courts had issued broad injunctions blocking the executive order nationwide.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated that “[u]niversal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts” (p. 2), and emphasized that the ruling is grounded in the traditional limitations of equity courts as defined by the Judiciary Act of 1789.

According to the opinion, “[t]he 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” (p. 10). The Court stressed that equitable remedies must be based on forms “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at the time of the nation's founding (p. 5).

Executive Order No. 14160, issued early in Trump’s second term, declared that children born in the U.S. are not citizens if their mothers were undocumented or present temporarily, and if their fathers were not citizens or lawful permanent residents (p. 3). Plaintiffs—individuals, advocacy groups, and multiple states—filed suit, claiming the order violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and the Nationality Act of 1940.

The Court's ruling grants the Trump administration’s request to partially stay the injunctions, limiting their effect to only those plaintiffs directly involved in the case. “[C]omplete relief is not synonymous with universal relief,” the Court explained, adding that courts may “administer complete relief between the parties,” but not more (p. 16).

In a sharp dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, warned that limiting national relief could allow unlawful executive policies to harm many who cannot immediately seek redress. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a separate dissent, criticized the majority’s “mind-numbingly technical query” and warned that the Court was “dismantling one of the judiciary’s most critical tools for upholding the rule of law” (p. 22).

The ruling returns the matter to lower courts to determine what narrower remedies may be appropriate. While the individual plaintiffs remain protected, broader enforcement of the executive order could now resume pending further litigation.

The decision is poised to reshape how legal challenges to federal policy unfold, placing new limits on lower courts' ability to suspend government action nationwide.