By the middle of March 2025, President Donald Trump and his administration couldn’t help but notice the steady stream of preliminary-injunction rulings – many nationwide in scope – that were gumming up the progress of more than a few of his “Shock and Awe 2.0” executive orders.
He was particularly miffed at the three (parallel) federal district court rulings from Massachusetts, Washington State, and Maryland that had preliminarily enjoined one of his first-day favorites: his attempt to curb birthright citizenship. No matter that the presidential directive was blatantly and unmistakably, unconstitutional under the clear language of the Fourteenth Amendment and 150 years of jurisprudence. As Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee who was the first judge to block the order, said from the bench, “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades, I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is.”
When three appellate courts – the First, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits – rapidly affirmed these nationwide bans, the president said “enough is enough.” He asked the United States Supreme Court to help him out with a “modest request”: “...[W]hile the parties litigate weighty merits questions, the Court should “restrict the scope” of multiple preliminary injunctions that ‘purpor[t] to cover every person * * * in the country.’” Application for a Partial Stay of the Injunctions Issued by the United States District Court of Maryland, Supreme Court docket No. 24A884 [Parallel stay applications were filed for the additional two injunctions.]
See Trump asks Supreme Court to curb judges’ power to block policies nationwide (updated March 13, 2025, 6:26 pm) Josh Gerstein, politico.com [“President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to eliminate a key tool that lower courts have used to block various aspects of his agenda....[He wants the justices] to rein in or shelve three nationwide injunctions lower-court judges have issued against his bid to end birthright citizenship. But his request could have repercussions far beyond the debate over the controversial citizenship plan.”]
Developments in ResponseThe state plaintiffs in the Washington litigation (in a brief adopted by plaintiffs in the other two cases) wrote: “Being directed to follow the law as it has been universally understood for over 125 years is not an emergency warranting the extraordinary remedy of a stay. This Court should deny the federal government’s request....”] States...
