On June 27, 2025, in a 6-3 opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Trump v. CASA, Inc., No. 24A884, 606 U.S. ___ (2025), that federal courts lack the power to issue “universal injunctions,” a remedy courts have increasingly used in recent decades to bar the enforcement or implementation of major new federal laws, regulations, or policies against anyone nationwide, rather than only the parties to a case. The underlying case involves the lawfulness of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order No. 14160, which, if implemented, would narrow birthright citizenship. But the Court’s decision focused exclusively on the scope of relief, and it will have implications well beyond the current controversy.
Read on to understand the immediate implications of the Court’s decision and the open questions that remain.
The Court’s Decision
In three lawsuits consolidated before the Supreme Court, individuals, organizations, and States challenged EO 14160 under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each case, the district court entered a universal preliminary injunction, prohibiting the government from enforcing the EO against anyone anywhere, and the courts of appeals denied a stay. The government filed emergency applications to the Supreme Court. The government did not ask the Supreme Court to review the merits, only to limit the scope of the injunctions. In a 6-3 decision, divided along ideological lines, the Court granted the requests and partially stayed the injunctions.
The Court observed that the frequency with which federal courts have entered universal injunctions has increased rapidly in recent years. District courts issued approximately 25 universal injunctions in the first 100 days of the second Trump Administration. More than three quarters of all universal injunctions—nearly 100—were entered during the George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.
The Court held that these universal injunctions exceed the equitable powers granted in the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Act provides that federal courts have jurisdiction over “all suits … in equity.” The Court has previously held that this equitable authority includes only those sorts of remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at the Nation’s inception. Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U.S. 308, 319 (1999). Here, the Court determined that universal injunctions were not “sufficiently analogous” to any relief issued by the High Court of Chancery in England or Founding-era courts of equity to be covered.
Instead, the Court held that injunctions must be no broader than required to provide the plaintiffs “complete relief.” The Court reasoned that prohibiting enforcement of the EO against the child of any pregnant plaintiff would grant complete relief to the individual and associational plaintiffs. The Court declined to determine what relief would afford complete relief to the States, leaving the courts of appeals to address that issue on remand. The Court thus entered a partial stay “to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.”
Impact of the Decision
The Court’s decision has immediate implications for challenges to federal laws, regulations, and policies—while leaving many open questions about next steps.
Universal injunctions are no longer available. The Court’s decision ends universal injunctions as such. As the Court observed, “universal” (sometimes called “nationwide”) injunctions have become common during the last several presidential administrations, often enjoining major new federal initiatives for years while legal challenges made their way through the courts. The Court’s decision makes clear that such injunctions are not within the power of federal courts. Expect the government to appeal or seek to narrow other universal injunctions currently in force.
Other avenues for broad relief remain available. Despite the Court’s holding, the decision does not foreclose several avenues for broad injunctive relief, including, in some cases, the functional equivalent of a universal injunction.
The Court acknowledged that, in some cases (including potentially these cases), the only way to grant the plaintiff “complete relief” will be a blanket ban on enforcement—effectively granting universal relief. The States argued that such relief would be required here, given the frequent movement of individuals in and out of their borders and other administrative complications. The Court remanded the cases back to the lower courts to resolve that question.
The Court’s decision also leaves open the possibility of broad injunctive relief in class actions. Indeed, the Court acknowledges the historical pedigree of class-wide injunctive relief consistent with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. And the Court itself recently granted broad class-wide preliminary injunctive relief, even before the district court (or any other) certified the class. See A.A.R.P. v. Trump, 605 U.S. ___ (2025). In his concurrence, Justice Samuel Alito likewise recognized the possibility of nationwide classes, while admonishing district courts not to read the Court’s decision as an invitation to certify such classes without “scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23.”
Finally, the Court’s decision does not foreclose “universal vacatur” of final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA authorizes federal courts to “set aside” unlawful agency action. Lower courts have interpreted that authority to permit vacating an agency regulation or order as applied to anyone, not merely the parties. While the majority reserved that “distinct question” in a footnote, Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a separate concurrence endorsed the remedy (as he has done before), including the authority of district courts to “preliminarily set aside” agency action. Other Justices, including Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Barrett, have expressed skepticism that the APA allows courts to universally vacate agency action. See, e.g., United States v. Texas, 599 U.S. 670, 695 (2023) (Gorsuch, J., concurring).
Other open questions remain. In addition to universal vacatur under the APA, the Court’s decision leaves open other related questions.
First, the Court did not decide the extent of a State’s authority to seek injunctive relief on behalf of its citizens. As Justice Alito explained in a concurring opinion, while the Court has allowed plaintiffs to assert the rights of a third party “[i]n limited circumstances,” the plaintiff must show that it would have Article III standing itself and that it meets other threshold requirements for third-party standing. Justice Alito expressed concern that if lower courts “reflexive[ly]” allow States to assert third-party standing, the limits on injunctive relief established by CASA could be undermined. The majority opinion’s remand directed the lower courts to limit the injunctions in CASA so as to afford relief only to those plaintiffs “with standing to sue,” promising some immediate development of law on this question.
Second, the Court did not provide any direction to lower courts about how they should consider requests for preliminary injunctive relief for putative nationwide classes. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in A.A.R.P. likewise provided little guidance. Plaintiffs before the Court in CASA have already filed an amended complaint and moved for certification of a nationwide class of children and parents affected by the EO.
Finally, the Court expressly declined to address the government’s argument that the district courts lacked authority to grant relief to the plaintiff organizations’ members who are not identified in the complaints. In his concurring opinion in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367 (2024), Justice Thomas expressed a willingness to revisit the Court’s precedents allowing some organizations and associations to seek judicial relief on behalf of their members. Those precedents are likely to take on more importance, given the Court’s new limits on obtaining universal relief.
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