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The Supreme Court granted a partial stay Friday of President Donald Trump‘s request to block lower courts from issuing universal injunctions, granting a par victory for the administration as it looks to execute many of its top priorities via executive order and action.
Justices ruled 6-3 to allow the lower courts to issue injunctions in certain cases.
“The applications do not raise—and thus we do not address—the question whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, writing for the majority. “The issue before us is one of remedy: whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.”
“A universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power,” she added.
The Supreme Court agreed in April to hear the consolidated cases, which focused on three lower court judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state who issued “universal” injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order.
But that wasn’t the main focus of the appeal, or the May 15 oral arguments before the high court.
Rather, the justices considered whether lower courts should have the authority to issue nationwide injunctions at all, or whether doing so exceeds their authority, as argued by U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer.
100 DAYS OF INJUNCTIONS, TRIALS AND ‘TEFLON DON’: TRUMP SECOND TERM MEETS ITS BIGGEST TESTS IN COURT
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., after signing a series of executive orders and proclamations. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The ruling is expected to have sweeping implications for U.S. district courts, and comes at a time when presidents, including both Democrat and Republican administrations, have sought to use executive orders as a…
