CASA ruling: government policies cannot be halted by federal injunctions

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s 26-page opinion in Trump v. Casa found that federal courts cannot place “universal injunctions” against government policies, except for in class action cases. It did not consider the Constitutionality of the birthright citizenship order.

Barrett ruled that district courts do not have—and never did have—the power to place injunctions against a government policy. Courts only have the power to stop the policy from being applied to a specific plaintiff. 

“Under our well-established precedent, the equitable relief available in the federal courts is that ‘traditionally accorded by courts of equity’ at the time of our founding. Nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter. Thus, under the Judiciary Act, federal courts lack authority to issue them,” she wrote.

Barrett defines universal injunctions as injunctions against the enforcement of a law or policy against everyone. Despite ever having the authority to place universal injunctions, Barrett noted that the Supreme Court has been increasingly placing universal injunctions against government policies, and quoted a Harvard Law Review article that said the nation has reached “a state of affairs where almost every major presidential act was immediately frozen by a federal district court.” A Congressional Research Service report found 25 universal injunctions filed between Jan. 20 and April 29, 2025.

The Judiciary branch cannot compel the executive branch to follow the law, she continued.

“No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation—in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so. See, e.g., Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803) (concluding that James Madison had violated the law but holding that the Court lacked jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus ordering him to follow it),” Barrett wrote.

“When a federal court enters a universal injunction against the Government, it ‘improper[ly] intru[des]’ on ‘a coordinate branch of the Government’ and prevents the Government from enforcing its policies against nonparties,” she wrote.

She also found that the government would face irreparable harm if the status quo was maintained by an injunction.

“The question before us is whether the Government is likely to suffer irreparable harm from the District Courts’ entry of injunctions that likely exceed the authority conferred by the Judiciary Act. The answer to that question is yes…any time a State is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.’”

Barrett found that some courts do have the power to issue universal injunctions against government policies—but only in class action cases. She finds this through looking at the English equivalent of a universal injunction in the 18th-century: a bill of peace. 

“The bill of peace lives in modern form, but not as the universal injunction. It evolved into the modern class action…while (class actions are) in some ways ‘more restrictive of representative suits than the original bills of peace…it would still be recognizable to an English chancellor,” Barrett wrote.