Trump v. CASA, Inc.

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 606 U. S. Part 2
Pages 831–941
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T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
June 27, 2025
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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Syllabus
TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
et
al. v. CASA, INC., et al.
on application for partial stay
No. 24A884. Argued May 15, 2025—Decided June 27, 2025*
Plaintiffs (respondents here)—individuals, organizations, and States—fled
three separate suits to enjoin the implementation and enforcement of
President Trump's Executive Order No. 14160. See Protecting the
Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, 90 Fed. Reg. 8449. The
Executive Order identifes circumstances in which a person born in the
United States is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof ” and is thus
not recognized as an American citizen. The plaintiffs allege that the
Executive Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship
Clause, § 1, and § 201 of the Nationality Act of 1940. In each case, the
District Court entered a “universal injunction”—an injunction barring
executive offcials from applying the Executive Order to anyone, not
just the plaintiffs. And in each case, the Court of Appeals denied the
Government's request to stay the sweeping relief. The Government
argues that the District Courts lacked equitable authority to impose
universal relief and has fled three nearly identical emergency applica-
tions seeking partial stays to limit the preliminary injunctions to the
plaintiffs in each case. The applications do not raise—and thus the
Court does not address—the question whether the Executive Order vio-
lates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act. Instead, the issue the
Court decides is whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts
have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.
Held: Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Con-
gress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Government's
applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below, but only
to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide
complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue. Pp. 839–862.
(a) The issue raised by these applications—whether Congress has
granted federal courts authority to universally enjoin the enforcement
of an executive order—plainly warrants this Court's review. On multi-
ple occasions, and across administrations, the Solicitor General has
*Together with No. 24A885, Trump, President of the United States,
et al. v. Washington et al., and No. 24A886, Trump, President of the
United States, et al. v. New Jersey et al., also on applications for partial
stays.

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UMP v. CASA, INC.
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asked the Court to consider the propriety of this expansive remedy. As
the
number of universal injunctions has increased over the years, so too
has the importance of the issue. Pp. 839–840.
(b) The Government is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that
the District Courts lacked authority to issue universal injunctions. See
Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 434 (holding that for a stay application to
be granted, the applicant must make a strong showing of likelihood of
success on the merits). The issuance of a universal injunction can be
justifed only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has
granted federal courts no such power. The Judiciary Act of 1789 en-
dowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” § 11,
1 Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal
courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies
442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only
those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of
equity” at our country's inception. Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo,
S. A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S. 308, 319.
Universal injunctions are not suffciently “analogous” to any relief
available in the court of equity in England at the time of the founding.
Id., at 318–319. Equity offered a mechanism for the Crown “to secure
justice where it would not be secured by the ordinary and existing proc-
esses of law.” G. Adams, The Origin of English Equity, 16 Colum.
L. Rev. 87, 91. This “judicial prerogative of the King ” thus extended
to “those causes which the ordinary judges were incapable of determin-
ing.” 1 J. Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence § 31, p. 27. Eventually, the
Crown instituted the “practice of delegating the cases” that “came be-
fore” the judicial prerogative “to the chancellor for his sole decision.”
Id., § 34, at 28. The “general rule in Equity [was] that all persons mate-
rially interested [in the suit were] to be made parties to it.” J. Story,
Commentaries on Equity Pleadings § 72, p. 74. Injunctions were no
exception; there were “sometimes suits to restrain the actions of partic-
ular offcers against particular plaintiffs.” S. Bray, Multiple Chancel-
lors: Reforming the National Injunction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 417, 425
(Bray, Multiple Chancellors). Of importance here, suits in equity were
brought by and against individual parties, and the Chancellor's remedies
were generally party specifc. See Iveson v. Harris, 7 Ves. 251, 257, 32
Eng. Rep. 102, 104 (“[Y]ou cannot have an injunction except against a
party to the suit”). In sum, under longstanding equity practice in Eng-
land, there was no remedy “remotely like a national injunction.” Bray,
Multiple Chancellors 425.
Nor did founding-era courts of equity in the United States chart a
different course. If anything, the approach traditionally taken by fed-
eral courts cuts against the existence of such a sweeping remedy. Con-

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sider Scott v. Donald, where the plaintiff successfully challenged the
constituti
onality of a law on which state offcials had relied to confscate
alcohol that the plaintiff kept for personal use. See 165 U. S. 107, 109
(statement of case); id., at 111–112 (opinion of the Court). Although the
plaintiff sought an injunction barring enforcement of the law against
both himself and anyone “whose rights [were] infringed and threatened”
by it, the Court permitted only relief benefting the named plaintiff.
Id., at 115–117. In the ensuing decades, the Court consistently rebuffed
requests for relief that extended beyond the parties. See, e. g., Perkins
v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U. S. 113, 123; Frothingham v. Mellon, decided
with Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 487–489.
The Court's early refusals to grant relief to nonparties are consistent
with the party-specifc principles that permeate the Court's understand-
ing of equity. “[N]either declaratory nor injunctive relief,” the Court
has said, “can directly interfere with enforcement of contested statutes
or ordinances except with respect to the particular federal plaintiffs.”
Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 931. In fact, universal injunc-
tions were conspicuously nonexistent for most of the Nation's history.
Their absence from 18th and 19th century equity practice settles the
question of judicial authority.
While “equity is fexible,” Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 322, the
Court's precedent emphasizes that its “fexibility is confned within the
broad boundaries of traditional equitable relief.” Ibid. Because the
universal injunction lacks a historical pedigree, it falls outside the
bounds of a federal court's equitable authority under the Judiciary Act.
Pp. 841–847.
(c) Respondents' counterarguments are unavailing. Pp. 847–856.
(1) In an effort to satisfy Grupo Mexicano's historical test, re-
spondents claim that universal injunctions are the modern equivalent of
the decree resulting from a “bill of peace”—a form of group litigation in
the Court of Chancery. Respondents contend that the existence of this
historic equitable device means that federal courts have the equitable
authority to issue universal injunctions under the Judiciary Act. The
analogy, however, does not work. True, “bills of peace allowed [courts
of equity] to adjudicate the rights of members of dispersed groups with-
out formally joining them to a lawsuit through the usual procedures.”
Arizona v. Biden, 40 F. 4th 375, 397 (Sutton, C. J., concurring). Unlike
universal injunctions, however, which reach anyone affected by execu-
tive or legislative action, bills of peace involved a “group [that] was small
and cohesive.” Bray, Multiple Chancellors 426. And unlike universal
injunctions, which bind only the parties to the suit, decrees resulting
from a bill of peace “would bind all members of the group, whether they

834 TR
UMP v. CASA, INC.
Syllabus
were present in the action or not.” 7A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane,
F
ederal Practice and Procedure § 1751, p. 10.
The bill of peace lives in modern form, but not as the universal injunc-
tion. It is instead analogous to the modern class action—which, in fed-
eral court, is governed by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Proce-
dure. See ibid. Rule 23 requires numerosity (such that joinder is
impracticable), common questions of law or fact, typicality, and repre-
sentative parties who adequately protect the interests of the class.
Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23(a). The requirements for a bill of peace were
virtually identical. See 7A Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure
§ 1751, at 10, and n. 4. By forging a shortcut to relief that benefts
parties and nonparties alike, universal injunctions impermissibly cir-
cumvent Rule 23's procedural protections. Pp. 847–850.
(2) Respondents contend that universal injunctions—or at least
these universal injunctions—are simply an application of the principle
that a court of equity may fashion a remedy that awards complete relief.
But “complete relief ” is not synonymous with “universal relief.” It is
a narrower concept, long embraced in the equitable tradition, that allows
courts to “administer complete relief between the parties.” Kinney-
Coastal Oil Co. v. Kieffer, 277 U. S. 488, 507 (emphasis added). To be
sure, party-specifc injunctions sometimes “advantag[e] nonparties,”
Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667, 717 (Thomas, J., concurring), but they
do so only incidentally.
Here, prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the
child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete
relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship. And extending the in-
junction to cover everyone similarly situated would not render her relief
any more complete. So the individual and associational respondents
are wrong to characterize the universal injunction as simply an applica-
tion of the complete-relief principle. The inquiry is more complicated
for the state respondents, because the relevant injunction does not pur-
port to directly beneft nonparties. Instead, the District Court for the
District of Massachusetts decided that a universal injunction was neces-
sary to provide the States themselves complete relief. As the States
see it, their harms—fnancial injuries and the administrative burdens
fowing from citizen-dependent benefts programs—cannot be remedied
without a blanket ban on the enforcement of the Executive Order.
Children often move across state lines or are born outside their parents'
State of residence. Given the cross-border fow, the States say, a
“patchwork injunction” would prove unworkable for the provision of
certain federally funded benefts. The Government retorts that even if
the injunction is designed to beneft only the States, it is “more burden-
some than necessary to redress” their asserted harms, see Califano v.
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Syllabus
Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702, and that narrower relief is appropriate.
The
Court declines to take up these arguments in the frst instance.
The lower courts should determine whether a narrower injunction is
appropriate, so we leave it to them to consider these and any related
arguments. Pp. 850–854.
(3) Respondents defend universal injunctions as a matter of policy;
the Government advances policy arguments running the other way. As
with most questions of law, the policy pros and cons are beside the point.
Under the Court's well-established precedent, see Grupo Mexicano, 527
U. S., at 319, because universal injunctions lack a founding-era forebear,
federal courts lack authority to issue them. Pp. 854–856.
(d) To obtain interim relief, the Government must show that it is
likely to suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. Nken, 556 U. S., at 434–
435. 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. INS v. Legalization Assistance Project of Los
Angeles County Federation of Labor, 510 U. S. 1301, 1306 (O'Connor, J.,
in chambers); see also Maryland v. King, 567 U. S. 1301, 1303 (Roberts,
C. J., in chambers) (“ `[A]ny time a State is enjoined by a court from
effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers
a form of irreparable injury' ” (alteration in original)). The Court's
practice also demonstrates that an applicant need not show it will pre-
vail on the underlying merits when it seeks a stay on a threshold issue.
See, e. g., Gutierrez v. Saenz, 603 U. S. 937; Offce of Personnel Manage-
ment v. American Federation of Government Employees, 604 U. S. –––.
The Government here is likely to suffer irreparable harm from the Dis-
trict Courts' entry of injunctions that likely exceed the authority con-
ferred by the Judiciary Act. And the balance of equities does not coun-
sel against awarding the Government interim relief: A partial stay will
cause no harm to respondents because they will remain protected by
the preliminary injunctions to the extent necessary and appropriate to
afford them complete relief. Pp. 859–861.
(e) When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted un-
lawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too. The
Government's applications for partial stays of the preliminary injunc-
tions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader
than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing
to sue. Pp. 861–862.
Applications for partial stays granted.
Barrett, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts,
C. J., and Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, JJ., joined.
Thomas, J., fled a concurring opinion, in which Gorsuch, J., joined, post,
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UMP v. CASA, INC.
Syllabus
p. 862. Alito, J., fled a concurring opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined,
post
, p. 866. Kavanaugh, J., fled a concurring opinion, post, p. 868. So-
tomayor, J., fled a dissenting opinion, in which Kagan and Jackson, JJ.,
joined, post, p. 879. Jackson, J., fled a dissenting opinion, post, p. 921.
Solicitor General Sauer argued the cause for applicants in
all cases.
Jeremy Feigenbaum, Solicitor General of New Jersey, ar-
gued the cause for state and city respondents.
K e l s i B . Co r k r a n a r g u e d t h e c a u s e f o r p r i v a t e
respondents.†
†Briefs of amici curiae urging the denial of the applications were fled
in all cases for B. A. M. N. (The Coalition to Defend Affrmative Action
et al.) by Shanta Driver; for Common Cause by Gregory L. Diskant; for
Local Governments et al. by Jonathan Miller, David R. Gault, Atleen
Kaur, John P. Markovs, Christian D. Menefee, and Lyndsey M. Olson; for
the Restaurant Law Center et al. by Angelo I. Amador, Thomas Ward,
Gabriel K. Gillett, Elizabeth Gaudio Milito, and Karen R. Harned; for
Scholars of Consitutional Law and Immigration by Elizabeth B. Wydra
and Brianne J. Gorod; for the Student Political Research Initiative for
New Governance (SPRING) et al. by Zachary Wol fe; for Gabriel J. Chin
et al. by Darryl M. Woo and Neel Chatterjee; for Suzette Malveaux et al.
by Suzette Malveaux, pro se; for Alan B. Morrison, pro se; and for Mila
Sohoni by Kevin K. Russell and Daniel Woofter.
Briefs of amici curiae urging the grant of the applications were fled in
all cases for the State of Iowa et al. by Brenna Bird, Attorney General of
Iowa, and Eric Wessan, Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General
for their respective States as follows: Steve Marshall of Alabama, Tim
Griffn of Arkansas, James Uthmeier of Florida, Raúl R. Labrador of
Idaho, Theodore E. Rokita of Indiana, Kris Kobach of Kansas, Liz Murrill
of Louisiana, Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Andrew T. Bailey of Missouri,
Austin Knudsen of Montana, Michael T. Hilgers of Nebraska, Drew Wrig-
ley of North Dakota, Dave Yost of Ohio, Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma,
Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Marty Jackley of South Dakota, Ken Pax-
ton of Texas, Derek E. Brown of Utah, and Bridget Hill of Wyoming; for
the State of West Virginia by John B. McCuskey, Attorney General of
West Virginia, Michael Williams, Solicitor General, Jay Alan Sekulow,
Jordan A. Sekulow, Stuart J. Roth, Donn S. Parsons, Walter M. Weber,
and Liam R. Harrell; for America's Future et al. by William J. Olson,
Jeremiah L. Morgan, Robert J. Olson, John C. Eastman, Alexander Ha-
berbush, Michael Boos, Richard B. Sanders, Kerry L. Morgan, John

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837
Opinion of the Court
Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court.
The
United States has fled three emergency applications
challenging the scope of a federal court's authority to enjoin
Government offcials from enforcing an executive order.
Traditionally, courts issued injunctions prohibiting executive
offcials from enforcing a challenged law or policy only
against the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The injunctions before
us today refect a more recent development: district courts
asserting the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or pol-
icy against anyone. These injunctions—known as “univer-
sal injunctions”—likely exceed the equitable authority that
Congress has granted to federal courts.
1
We therefore
I. Harris III, Mark J. Fitzgibbons, Jeffrey C. Tuomala, Patrick M. Mc-
Sweeney, J. Mark Brewer, Joseph W. Miller, and Phillip L. Jauregui;
for the Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence
by John C. Eastman and Alexander Haberbush; for the Immigration Re-
form Law Institute by Christopher J. Hajec; for Members of Congress
by R. Trent McCotter, Daniel Z. Epstein, and Joel B. Ard; for Edwin
Meese III by J. Christian Adams; and for Joshua Steinman by Judd E.
Stone II.
Briefs of amici curiae were fled in all cases for the State of Tennessee
by Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General of Tennessee, J. Matthew Rice,
Solicitor General, and Whitney D. Hermandorfer; for Members of the U. S.
Congress by Jonathan Weinberg; for the National Immigrant Justice
Center by Charles Roth; for Corey J. Biazzo, pro se; for David Boyle, pro
se; for William T. Dickson, pro se; for G. Antaeus B. Edelsohn by Joan
Deborah B. Edelsohn; and for James E. Pfander, pro se, by Jeffrey T.
Green.
Briefs of amici curiae were fled in No. 24A884 for the Chamber of
Commerce of the United States of America by Elbert Lin, Erica N. Pe-
terson, and Jennifer B. Dickey; and for Legal Historians by Virginia
Grace Davis.
1
Such injunctions are sometimes called “nationwide injunctions,” re-
fecting their use by a single district court to bar the enforcement of a law
anywhere in the Nation. But the term “universal” better captures how
these injunctions work. Even a traditional, parties-only injunction can
apply beyond the jurisdiction of the issuing court. Steele v. Bulova Watch
Co., 344 U. S. 280, 289 (1952) (When “exercising its equity powers,” a dis-

838 TR
UMP v. CASA, INC.
Opinion of the Court
grant the Government's applications to partially stay the in-
junc
tions entered below.
I
The applications before us concern three overlapping, uni-
versal preliminary injunctions entered by three different
District Courts. See 763 F. Supp. 3d 723 (Md. 2025), appeal
pending, No. 25–1153 (CA4); 765 F. Supp. 3d 1142 (WD Wash.
2025), appeal pending, No. 25–807 (CA9); Doe v. Trump, 766
F. Supp. 3d 266 (Mass. 2025), appeal pending, No. 25–1170
(CA1). The plaintiffs—individua ls, organizati ons, and
States—sought to enjoin the implementation and enforce-
ment of President Trump's Executive Order No. 14160.
2
See Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizen-
ship, 90 Fed. Reg. 8449 (2025). The Executive Order identi-
fes circumstances in which a person born in the United
States is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof ” and is thus
not recognized as an American citizen. See ibid. Specif-
cally, it sets forth the “policy of the United States” to no
longer issue or accept documentation of citizenship in two
scenarios: “(1) when [a] person's mother was unlawfully pres-
ent in the United States and the person's father was not a
United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the
time of said person's birth, or (2) when [a] person's mother's
trict court “may command persons properly before it to cease or perform
acts outside its territorial jurisdiction”). The difference between a tradi-
tional injunction and a universal injunction is not so much where it applies,
but whom it protects: A universal injunction prohibits the Government
from enforcing the law against anyone, anywhere. H. Wasserman, “Na-
tionwide” Injunctions Are Really “Universal” Injunctions and They Are
Never Appropriate, 22 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 335, 338 (2018).
2
The Government does not dispute—nor could it—that the individual
plaintiffs have standing to sue. But it argues that the States lack third-
party standing because their claims rest exclusively on the rights of indi-
viduals. Application for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A884, pp. 28–
32. It also challenges the District Courts' authority to grant relief to the
organizations' members who are not identifed in the complaints. See id.,
at 22. We do not address these arguments.
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Opinion of the Court
presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and
the
person's father was not a United States citizen or lawful
permanent resident at the time of said person's birth.”
Ibid. The Executive Order also provides for a 30-day ramp-
up period. During that time, the order directs executive
agencies to develop and issue public guidance regarding the
order's implementation. See id., at 8449–8450.
The plaintiffs fled suit, alleging that the Executive Order
violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause,
§ 1, as well as § 201 of the Nationality Act of 1940, 54 Stat.
1138 (codifed at 8 U. S. C. § 1401). In each case, the District
Court concluded that the Executive Order is likely unlawful
and entered a universal preliminary injunction barring vari-
ous executive offcials from applying the policy to anyone in
the country. And in each case, the Court of Appeals denied
the Government's request to stay the sweeping relief. See
2025 WL 654902 (CA4, Feb. 28, 2025); 2025 WL 553485 (CA9,
Feb. 19, 2025); 131 F. 4th 27 (CA1 2025).
The Government has now fled three nearly identical appli-
cations seeking to partially stay the universal preliminary
injunctions and limit them to the parties. See Application
for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A884; Application for
Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A885; Application for Par-
tial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A886.
3
The applications do
not raise—and thus we do not address—the question
whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause
or Nationality Act. The issue before us is one of remedy:
whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have
equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.
II
The question whether Congress has granted federal courts
the authority to universally enjoin the enforcement of an ex-
ecutive or legislative policy plainly warrants our review, as
3
Because the applications are materially identical, we cite only the appli-
cation in No. 24A884 throughout the rest of the opinion.
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UMP v. CASA, INC.
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Members of this Court have repeatedly emphasized. See,
e
. g., McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc., 604 U. S. –––, –––
(2025) (Gorsuch, J., concurring in grant of stay) (“I would
. . . take this case now to resolve defnitively the question
whether a district court may issue universal injunctive re-
lief ”); Labrador v. Poe, 601 U. S. 1110, 1116 (2024) (Gorsuch,
J., joined by Thomas and Alito, JJ., concurring in grant of
stay) (“[T]he propriety of universal injunctive relief [is] a
question of great signifcance that has been in need of the
Court's attention for some time”); Griffn v. HM Florida-
ORL, LLC, 601 U. S. –––, ––– (2023) (statement of Kava-
naugh, J., joined by Barrett, J., except as to footnote 1,
respecting denial of application for stay) (Universal injunc-
tions present “an important question that could warrant our
review in the future”); Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667, 713
(2018) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“If [universal injunctions']
popularity continues, this Court must address their legal-
ity”). On multiple occasions, and across administrations, the
Solicitor General has asked us to consider the propriety of
this expansive remedy. See, e. g., Application for Stay of In-
junction in McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc., O. T. 2024,
No. 24A653 (Biden administration); Brief for Petitioners in
Trump v. Hawaii, O. T. 2017, No. 17–965 (frst Trump
administration).
It is easy to see why. By the end of the Biden administra-
tion, we had reached “a state of affairs where almost every
major presidential act [was] immediately frozen by a federal
district court.” W. Baude & S. Bray, Comment, Proper Par-
ties, Proper Relief, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 153, 174 (2023). The
trend has continued: During the frst 100 days of the second
Trump administration, district courts issued approximately
25 universal injunctions. Congressional Research Service,
J. Lampe, Nationwide Injunctions in the First Hundred Days
of the Second Trump Administration 1 (May 16, 2025). As
the number of universal injunctions has increased, so too has
the importance of the issue.
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841
Opinion of the Court
III
A
The
Government is likely to succeed on the merits of its
argument regarding the scope of relief. See Nken v. Holder,
556 U. S. 418, 434 (2009) (holding that for a stay application
to be granted, the applicant must make “ `a strong showing
that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits' ”). A universal
injunction can be justifed only as an exercise of equitable
authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such
power.
4
The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with ju-
risdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” § 11, 1 Stat. 78, and
still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts
to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Reme-
dies 442 (4th ed. 2024). Though fexible, this equitable au-
thority is not freewheeling. We have held that the statutory
grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies
“traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country's
inception. Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. v. Alliance
Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S. 308, 319 (1999); see also, e. g.,
Payne v. Hook, 7 Wall. 425, 430 (1869) (“The equity jurisdic-
tion conferred on the Federal courts is the same that the
High Court of Chancery in England possesses”).
5
We must
therefore ask whether universal injunctions are suffciently
“analogous” to the relief issued “ `by the High Court of
Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the
4
Our decision rests solely on the statutory authority that federal courts
possess under the Judiciary Act of 1789. We express no view on the Gov-
ernment's argument that Article III forecloses universal relief.
5
See also Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 105 (1945) (“[T]he
federal courts [have] no power that they would not have had in any event
when courts were given `cognizance,' by the frst Judiciary Act, of suits
`in equity' ”); Boyle v. Zacharie & Turner, 6 Pet. 648, 658 (1832) (“[T]he
settled doctrine of this court is, that the remedies in equity are to be
administered, not according to the state practice, but according to the
practice of courts of equity in the parent country”).
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UMP v. CASA, INC.
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Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary
A
ct.' ” Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 318–319 (quoting A.
Dobie, Handbook of Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure 660
(1928)).
The answer is no: Neither the universal injunction nor any
analogous form of relief was available in the High Court of
Chancery in England at the time of the founding. Equity
offered a mechanism for the Crown “to secure justice where
it would not be secured by the ordinary and existing proc-
esses of law.” G. Adams, The Origin of English Equity, 16
Colum. L. Rev. 87, 91 (1916). This “judicial prerogative of
the King ” thus extended to “those causes which the ordinary
judges were incapable of determining.” 1 J. Pomeroy, Eq-
uity Jurisprudence § 31, p. 27 (1881). Eventually, the Crown
instituted the “practice of delegating the cases” that “came
before” the judicial prerogative “to the chancellor for his sole
decision.” Id., § 34, at 28. This “became the common mode
of dealing with such controversies.” Ibid.
Of importance here, suits in equity were brought by and
against individual parties. Indeed, the “general rule in Eq-
uity [was] that all persons materially interested [in the suit
were] to be made parties to it.” J. Story, Commentaries on
Equity Pleadings § 72, p. 74 (2d ed. 1840) (Story). Injunc-
tions were no exception; there were “sometimes suits to re-
strain the actions of particular offcers against particular
plaintiffs.” S. Bray, Multiple Chancellors: Reforming the
National Injunction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 417, 425 (2017) (Bray,
Multiple Chancellors) (emphasis added). And in certain
cases, the “Attorney General could be a defendant.” Ibid.
The Chancellor's remedies were also typically party specifc.
“As a general rule, an injunction” could not bind one who
was not a “party to the cause.” F. Calvert, Suits in Equity
120 (2d ed. 1847); see also Iveson v. Harris, 7 Ves. 251, 257,
32 Eng. Rep. 102, 104 (1802) (“[Y]ou cannot have an injunc-
tion except against a party to the suit”). Suffce it to say,
then, under longstanding equity practice in England, there
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was no remedy “remotely like a national injunction.” Bray,
Mu
ltiple Chancellors 425.
Nor did founding-era courts of equity in the United States
chart a different course. See 1 Pomeroy, Equity Jurispru-
dence § 41, at 33–34. If anything, the approach traditionally
taken by federal courts cuts against the existence of such
a sweeping remedy. Consider Scott v. Donald, where the
plaintiff successfully challenged the constitutionality of a law
on which state offcials had relied to confscate alcohol that
the plaintiff kept for personal use. See 165 U. S. 107, 109
(1897) (statement of case); id., at 111–112 (opinion of the
Court). Although the plaintiff sought an injunction barring
enforcement of the law against both himself and anyone else
“whose rights [were] infringed and threatened” by it, this
Court permitted only a narrower decree between “the par-
ties named as plaintiff and defendants in the bill.” Id., at
115–117.
6
In the ensuing decades, we consistently rebuffed requests
for relief that extended beyond the parties. See, e. g., Per-
kins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U. S. 113, 123 (1940) (“The bene-
fts of [the court's] injunction” improperly extended “to bid-
ders throughout the Nation who were not parties to any
proceeding, who were not before the court[,] and who had
6
Though the principal dissent claims otherwise, we do not treat Scott
as “dispositive.” Post, at 905 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.). Under Grupo
Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S.
308 (1999), the lack of a historical analogue is dispositive. Scott simply
illustrates that as late as 1897, this Court adhered to a party-specifc view
of relief. And while the principal dissent relies on Smyth v. Ames, 169
U. S. 466, 518 (1898), as a counterexample to Scott, see post, at 905 (opinion
of Sotomayor, J.), it is unclear why. Even supporters of the universal
injunction recognize that “the decree [that Smyth] affrmed did not reach
beyond the parties.” M. Sohoni, The Lost History of the “Universal” In-
junction, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 920, 939 (2020); Smyth, 169 U. S., at 476–477
(statement of case) (quoting circuit court order that enjoined state offcials
from enforcing the statute “against said railroad companies” (emphasis
added)).
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sought no relief ”); cf. Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with
Massachu
setts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 487–489 (1923) (con-
cluding that the Court lacked authority to issue “preventive
relief ” that would apply to people who “suffe[r] in some in-
defnite way in common with people generally”); Bray, Multi-
ple Chancellors 433 (explaining that the Frothingham analy-
sis “intertwines concepts of equity, remedies, and the judicial
power”). As Justice Nelson put it while riding circuit,
“[t]here is scarcely a suit at law, or in equity, . . . in which a
general statute is interpreted, that does not involve a ques-
tion in which other parties are interested.” Cutting v. Gil-
bert, 6 F. Cas. 1079, 1080 (No. 3,519) (CC SDNY 1865). But
to allow all persons subject to the statute to be treated as
parties to a lawsuit “would confound the established order of
judicial proceedings.” Ibid.
Our early refusals to grant relief to nonparties are consist-
ent with the party-specifc principles that permeate our un-
derstanding of equity. “[N]either declaratory nor injunctive
relief,” we have said, “can directly interfere with enforce-
ment of contested statutes or ordinances except with respect
to the particular federal plaintiffs.” Doran v. Salem Inn,
Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 931 (1975); see also Gregory v. Stetson,
133 U. S. 579, 586 (1890) (“It is an elementary principle that
a court cannot adjudicate directly upon a person's right with-
out having him either actually or constructively before it.
This principle is fundamental”); Baude & Bray, 137 Harv.
L. Rev., at 168 (noting the “party-specifc understanding of
what equitable remedies do”).
In fact, universal injunctions were not a feature of federal-
court litigation until sometime in the 20th century. See
Bray, Multiple Chancellors 448–452 (discussing various ra-
tionales for the birth of the universal injunction); see also
Application in No. 24A884, at 17–18. The D. C. Circuit is-
sued what some regard as the frst universal injunction in
1963. See Wirtz v. Baldor Elec. Co., 337 F. 2d 518, 535 (en-
joining the Secretary of Labor “with respect to the entire
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[electric motors and generators] industry,” not just the
named
plaintiffs to the lawsuit).
7
Yet such injunctions re-
mained rare until the turn of the 21st century, when their
use gradually accelerated. See Bray, Multiple Chancellors
439–443 (referencing Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), and
Harlem Valley Transp. Assn. v. Stafford, 360 F. Supp. 1057
(SDNY 1973)). One study identifed approximately 127 uni-
versal injunctions issued between 1963 and 2023. See Dis-
trict Court Reform: Nationwide Injunctions, 137 Harv.
L. Rev. 1701, 1705 (2024). Ninety-six of them—over three
quarters—were issued during the administrations of Presi-
dent George W. Bush, President Obama, President Trump,
and President Biden. Ibid.
The bottom line? The universal injunction was conspicu-
ously nonexistent for most of our Nation's history. Its ab-
sence from 18th- and 19th-century equity practice settles the
question of judicial authority.
8
See Grupo Mexicano, 527
7
There is some dispute about whether Wirtz was the frst universal
injunction. Professor Mila Sohoni points to other possible 20th-century
examples, including West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624
(1943), Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925), and Lewis Publish-
ing Co. v. Morgan, 229 U. S. 288 (1913). See Sohoni, 133 Harv. L. Rev., at
943; Brief for Professor Mila Sohoni as Amica Curiae 3; see also post, at
898–899 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.). But see M. Morley, Disaggregating
the History of Nationwide Injunctions: A Response to Professor Sohoni,
72 Ala. L. Rev. 239, 252–256 (2020) (disputing these examples). Regard-
less, under any account, universal injunctions postdated the founding by
more than a century—and under Grupo Mexicano, equitable authority
exercised under the Judiciary Act must derive from founding-era practice.
527 U. S., at 319. It also bears emphasis that none of these cases ad-
dresses the propriety of universal relief. Like a “drive-by-jurisdictional
rulin[g],” implicit acquiescence to a broad remedy “ha[s] no precedential ef-
fect.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 91 (1998).
8
The principal dissent faults us for failing to identify a single founding-
era case in which this Court held that universal injunctions exceed a federal
court's equitable authority. See post, at 905–906 (opinion of Sotomayor,
J.). But this absence only bolsters our case. That this Court had no occa-
sion to reject the universal injunction as inconsistent with traditional eq-
uity practice merely demonstrates that no party even bothered to ask for
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U. S., at 318–319. That the absence continued into the 20th
century
renders any claim of historical pedigree still more
implausible. Even during the “deluge of constitutional liti-
gation that occurred in the wake of Ex parte Young, through-
out the Lochner Era, and at the dawn of the New Deal,”
universal injunctions were nowhere to be found. M. Morley,
Disaggregating the History of Nationwide Injunctions: A
Response to Professor Sohoni, 72 Ala. L. Rev. 239, 252 (2020)
(footnotes omitted). Had federal courts believed themselves
to possess the tool, surely they would not have let it lie idle.
Faced with this timeline, the principal dissent accuses us
of “misunderstand[ing] the nature of equity” as being “fr[o-
zen] in amber . . . at the time of the Judiciary Act.” Post,
at 906 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.). Not so. We said it be-
fore, see supra, at 841, and say it again: “[E]quity is fexible.”
Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 322. At the same time, its
“fexibility is confned within the broad boundaries of tradi-
tional equitable relief.”
9
Ibid. A modern device need not
such a sweeping remedy—because no court would have entertained the
request. Cf. Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 332 (“[E]quitable powers con-
ferred by the Judiciary Act of 1789 did not include the power to create
remedies previously unknown to equity jurisprudence”).
9
Notwithstanding Grupo Mexicano, the principal dissent invokes Ex
parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), as support for the proposition that eq-
uity can encompass remedies that have “no analogue in the relief exercised
in the English Court of Chancery,” because Ex parte Young permits plain-
tiffs to “obtain plaintiff-protective injunctions against Government off-
cials,” and the English Court of Chancery “could not enjoin the Crown or
English offcers,” post, at 907 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.). But contrary
to the principal dissent's suggestion, Ex parte Young does not say—either
explicitly or implicitly—that courts may devise novel remedies that have
no background in traditional equitable practice. Historically, a court of
equity could issue an antisuit injunction to prevent an offcer from engag-
ing in tortious conduct. Ex parte Young justifes its holding by reference
to a long line of cases authorizing suits against state offcials in certain
circumstances. See 209 U. S., at 150–152 (citing, e. g., Osborn v. Bank of
United States, 9 Wheat. 738 (1824); Governor of Georgia v. Madrazo, 1
Pet. 110 (1828); and Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203 (1873)). Support for the
principal dissent's approach is found not in Ex parte Young, but in Justice
Ginsburg 's partial dissent in Grupo Mexicano, which eschews the govern-
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have an exact historical match, but under Grupo Mexicano,
it
must have a founding-era antecedent. And neither the
universal injunction nor a suffciently comparable predeces-
sor was available from a court of equity at the time of our
country's inception. See id., at 333. Because the universal
injunction lacks a historical pedigree, it falls outside the
bounds of a federal court's equitable authority under the Ju-
diciary Act.
10
See id., at 318–319.
B
Respondents raise several counterarguments, which the
principal dissent echoes. First, they insist that the univer-
sal injunction has a suffcient historical analogue: a decree
resulting from a bill of peace. Second, they maintain that
universal injunctions are consistent with the principle that a
court of equity may fashion complete relief for the parties.
Third, they argue that universal injunctions serve important
policy objectives.
1
In an effort to satisfy Grupo Mexicano's historical test,
respondents claim that universal injunctive relief does have
a founding-era forebear: the decree obtained on a “bill of
peace,” which was a form of group litigation permitted
in English courts. See Opposition to Application in No.
24A884 (CASA), pp. 30–31; see also Brief for Professor Mila
Sohoni as Amica Curiae 6–8. This bill allowed the Chancel-
lor to consolidate multiple suits that involved a “common
claim the plaintiff could have against multiple defendants” or
“some kind of common claim that multiple plaintiffs could
have against a single defendant.” Bray, Multiple Chancel-
lors 426; see How v. Tenants of Bromsgrove, 1 Vern. 22, 23
ing historical approach in favor of “[a] dynamic equity jurisprudence.”
527 U. S., at 337 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).
10
Nothing we say today resolves the distinct question whether the Ad-
ministrative Procedure Act authorizes federal courts to vacate federal
agency action. See 5 U. S. C. § 706(2) (authorizing courts to “hold unlaw-
ful and set aside agency action”).
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Eng. Rep. 277 (1681) (suit by a lord against his tenants collec-
tively);
Brown v. Vermuden, 1 Ch. Ca. 283, 22 Eng. Rep. 802
(1676), and Brown v. Vermuden, 1 Ch. Ca. 272, 22 Eng. Rep.
796 (1676) (suit by a parson against lead miners in a parish,
who named four of their members to defend the suit in a
representative capacity). Universal injunctions are analo-
gous to this traditional equitable device, respondents say, so
federal courts have authority under the Judiciary Act to
issue them.
The analogy does not work. True, “bills of peace allowed
[courts of equity] to adjudicate the rights of members of dis-
persed groups without formally joining them to a lawsuit
through the usual procedures.” Arizona v. Biden, 40 F. 4th
375, 397 (CA6 2022) (Sutton, C. J., concurring); see Story
§§ 120–135 (discussing representative suits). Even so, their
use was confned to limited circumstances. See 7A C.
Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Proce-
dure § 1751, p. 10, and n. 4 (4th ed. 2021) (citing Adair v. New
River Co., 11 Ves. 429, 32 Eng. Rep. 1153 (Ch. 1803)). Unlike
universal injunctions, which reach anyone affected by legis-
lative or executive action—no matter how large the group or
how tangential the effect—a bill of peace involved a “group
[that] was small and cohesive,” and the suit did not “resolve a
question of legal interpretation for the entire realm.” Bray,
Multiple Chancellors 426. And unlike universal injunctions,
which bind only the parties to the suit, decrees obtained on
a bill of peace “would bind all members of the group, whether
they were present in the action or not.” 7A Wright, Federal
Practice and Procedure § 1751, at 10; see Smith v. Sworm-
stedt, 16 How. 288, 303 (1854) (When “a court of equity per-
mits a portion of the parties in interest to represent the en-
tire body . . . the decree binds all of them the same as if all
were before the court”); see also Story § 120 (“[I]n most, if
not in all, cases of this sort, the decree obtained upon such a
Bill will ordinarily be held binding upon all other persons
standing in the same predicament”). As Chief Judge Sutton

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aptly put it, “[t]he domesticated animal known as a bill of
peace
looks nothing like the dragon of nationwide injunc-
tions.” Arizona, 40 F. 4th, at 397 (concurring opinion).
The bill of peace lives in modern form, but not as the uni-
versal injunction. It evolved into the modern class action,
which is governed in federal court by Rule 23 of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure. 7A Wright, Federal Practice and
Procedure § 1751, at 10 (“It was the English bill of peace that
developed into what is now known as the class action”); see
Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. 32, 41 (1940) (“The class suit was
an invention of equity”). And while Rule 23 is in some ways
“more restrictive of representative suits than the original
bills of peace,” Rodgers v. Bryant, 942 F. 3d 451, 464 (CA8
2019) (Stras, J., concurring), it would still be recognizable to
an English Chancellor. Rule 23 requires numerosity (such
that joinder is impracticable), common questions of law or
fact, typicality, and representative parties who adequately
protect the interests of the class. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23(a).
The requirements for a bill of peace were virtually identical.
See 7A Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1751, at 10,
and n. 4 (citing Adair, 11 Ves. 429, 32 Eng. Rep. 1153). None
of these requirements is a prerequisite for a universal
injunction.
Rule 23's limits on class actions underscore a signifcant
problem with universal injunctions. A “ `properly con-
ducted class action,' ” we have said, “can come about in fed-
eral courts in just one way—through the procedure set out
in Rule 23.” Smith v. Bayer Corp., 564 U. S. 299, 315 (2011);
Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23(a) (“One or more members of a class
may sue or be sued as representative parties on behalf of
all members only if ” Rule 23(a)'s requirements are satisfed
(emphasis added)). Yet by forging a shortcut to relief that
benefts parties and nonparties alike, universal injunctions
circumvent Rule 23's procedural protections and allow
“ `courts to “create de facto class actions at will.” ' ” Smith,
564 U. S., at 315 (quoting Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U. S. 880,

850 TR
UMP v. CASA, INC.
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901 (2008)). Why bother with a Rule 23 class action when
the
quick fx of a universal injunction is on the table? Cf.
Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 330–331 (“Why go through the
trouble of complying with local attachment and garnishment
statutes when this all-purpose prejudgment injunction is
available?”). The principal dissent's suggestion that these
suits could have satisfed Rule 23's requirements simply
proves that universal injunctions are a class-action work-
around. Post, at 902–903 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.).
The taxpayer suit is a similarly inadequate historical anal-
ogy. Contra, post, at 901–902. In a successful taxpayer
suit, a court would enjoin the collection of an unlawful tax
against “taxpayers joined as co-plaintiffs, or by one taxpayer
suing on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated.”
1 Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence § 260, at 277. To be sure,
some state courts would occasionally “enjoin the enforce-
ment and collection” of taxes against an “entire community,”
even when a “single taxpayer su[ed] on his own account.”
Id., at 277–278. But the practice of extending relief “with
respect to any taxpayer” was not adopted by state courts
until the mid-19th century, and even then, not all states were
willing to provide such sweeping relief. See Bray, Multiple
Chancellors 427. This post-founding practice of some state
courts thus sheds minimal light on federal courts' equitable
authority under the Judiciary Act. What is more, in Froth-
ingham, we refused to allow a single taxpayer to challenge
a federal appropriations act. 262 U. S., at 486–487. That
counsels against placing much, if any, reliance on taxpayer
suits as justifcation for the modern universal injunction.
2
Respondents contend that universal injunctions—or at
least these universal injunctions—are consistent with the
principle that a court of equity may fashion a remedy that
awards complete relief. See Opposition to Application in
No. 24A884 (CASA), at 22–25; Opposition to Application in
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Opinion of the Court
No. 24A885 (Washington), pp. 28–32; Opposition to Applica-
ti
on in No. 24A886 (New Jersey), pp. 31–39. We agree that
the complete-relief principle has deep roots in equity. But
to the extent respondents argue that it justifes the award
of relief to nonparties, they are mistaken.
11
“Complete relief ” is not synonymous with “universal re-
lief.” It is a narrower concept: The equitable tradition has
long embraced the rule that courts generally “may adminis-
ter complete relief between the parties.” Kinney-Coastal
Oil Co. v. Kieffer, 277 U. S. 488, 507 (1928) (emphasis added).
While party-specifc injunctions sometimes “advantag[e]
nonparties,” Trump, 585 U. S., at 717 (Thomas, J., concur-
ring), they do so only incidentally.
Consider an archetypal case: a nuisance in which one
neighbor sues another for blasting loud music at all hours of
the night. To afford the plaintiff complete relief, the court
has only one feasible option: order the defendant to turn her
11
Justice Jackson, for her part, thinks the “premise” that universal
injunctions provide relief to nonparties is “suspect” because, in her view,
“[n]onparties may beneft from an injunction, but only the plaintiff gets
relief.” Post, at 928–929, n. 2 (dissenting opinion). The availability of
contempt proceedings suggests otherwise. Consider the civil contempt
context. Under “traditional principles of equity practice,” courts may
“impos[e] civil contempt sanctions to `coerce [a] defendant into compliance'
with an injunction.” Taggart v. Lorenzen, 587 U. S. 554, 560 (2019) (quot-
ing United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 303–304 (1947)). Gener-
ally, civil contempt proceedings occur between the original parties to the
lawsuit. See Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 444–
445 (1911). But a federal court's “power in civil contempt proceedings is
determined by the requirements of full remedial relief ” to “effect compli-
ance with its decree.” McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 336 U. S. 187,
193–194 (1949). And “[w]hen an order grants relief for a nonparty,” as is
the case with universal injunctions, “the procedure for enforcing the order
is the same as for a party.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 71; see, e. g., Zamecnik
v. Indiana Prairie School Dist. No. 204, 636 F. 3d 874, 879 (CA7 2011).
So a nonparty covered by a universal injunction is likely to reap both the
practical beneft and the formal relief of the injunction. See M. Smith,
Only Where Justifed: Toward Limits and Explanatory Requirements for
Nationwide Injunctions, 95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 2013, 2019 (2020).
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music down—or better yet, off. That order will necessarily
beneft
the defendant's surrounding neighbors too; there is
no way “to peel off just the portion of the nuisance that
harmed the plaintiff.” Rodgers, 942 F. 3d, at 462 (Stras, J.,
concurring); see A. Woolhandler & C. Nelson, Does History
Defeat Standing Doctrine? 102 Mich. L. Rev. 689, 702 (2004).
But while the court's injunction might have the practical
effect of benefting nonparties, “that beneft [is] merely inci-
dental.” Trump, 585 U. S., at 717 (Thomas, J., concurring);
see also 3 J. Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence § 1349, pp. 380–
381 (1883).
12
As a matter of law, the injunction's protection
extends only to the suing plaintiff—as evidenced by the fact
that only the plaintiff can enforce the judgment against the
defendant responsible for the nuisance. If the nuisance per-
sists, and another neighbor wants to shut it down, she must
fle her own suit.
13
The individual and associational respondents are therefore
wrong to characterize the universal injunction as simply an
application of the complete-relief principle. Under this
principle, the question is not whether an injunction offers
complete relief to everyone potentially affected by an alleg-
edly unlawful act; it is whether an injunction will offer com-
plete relief to the plaintiffs before the court. See Califano
v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979) (“[I]njunctive relief
should be no more burdensome to the defendant than neces-
sary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs” (emphasis
added)). Here, prohibiting enforcement of the Executive
12
There may be other injuries for which it is all but impossible for courts
to craft relief that is complete and benefts only the named plaintiffs.
See, e. g., Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899 (1996) (racially gerrymandered con-
gressional maps).
13
The new plaintiff might be able to assert nonmutual offensive issue
preclusion. See Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U. S. 322, 331–332
(1979) (setting forth prerequisites for applying the doctrine). But nonmu-
tual offensive issue preclusion is unavailable against the United States.
United States v. Mendoza, 464 U. S. 154, 155 (1984). That universal in-
junctions end-run this rule is one of the Government's objections to them.
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Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff
w
ill give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be
denied citizenship. Extending the injunction to cover all
other similarly situated individuals would not render her re-
lief any more complete.
The complete-relief inquiry is more complicated for the
state respondents, because the relevant injunction does not
purport to directly beneft nonparties. Instead, the District
Court for the District of Massachusetts decided that a uni-
versal injunction was necessary to provide the States them-
selves with complete relief. See 766 F. Supp. 3d, at 288.
14
The States maintain that the District Court made the right
call. See Opposition to Application in No. 24A886 (New Jer-
sey), at 31–39.
As the States see it, their harms—fnancial injuries and
the administrative burdens fowing from citizen-dependent
benefts programs—cannot be remedied without a blanket
ban on the enforcement of the Executive Order. See, e. g.,
id., at 9–11. Children often move across state lines or are
born outside their parents' State of residence. Id., at 31, 35.
Given the cross-border fow, the States say, a “patchwork
injunction” would prove unworkable, because it would re-
quire them to track and verify the immigration status of the
parents of every child, along with the birth State of every
child for whom they provide certain federally funded bene-
fts. Ibid.
The Government—unsurprisingly—sees matters differ-
ently. It retorts that even if the injunction is designed to
beneft only the States, it is “more burdensome than neces-
sary to redress” their asserted harms. Califano, 442 U. S.,
at 702. After all, to say that a court can award complete
14
The District Court for the Western District of Washington acknowl-
edged the state respondents' complete-relief argument but primarily
granted a universal injunction on the basis that the “extreme nature of
the equities . . . alone warrant[ed] nationwide relief.” 765 F. Supp. 3d
1142, 1153 (2025).

854 TR
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relief is not to say that it should do so. Complete relief is
not
a guarantee—it is the maximum a court can provide.
And in equity, “the broader and deeper the remedy the plain-
tiff wants, the stronger the plaintiff 's story needs to be.” S.
Bray & P. Miller, Getting into Equity, 97 Notre Dame L. Rev.
1763, 1797 (2022). In short, “[t]he essence of equity jurisdic-
tion has been the power of the Chancellor to do equity and to
mould each decree to the necessities of the particular case.”
Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 321, 329 (1944).
Leaning on these principles, the Government contends
that narrower relief is appropriate. For instance, the Dis-
trict Court could forbid the Government to apply the Execu-
tive Order within the respondent States, including to chil-
dren born elsewhere but living in those States. Application
in No. 24A884, at 23. Or, the Government says, the District
Court could direct the Government to “treat covered chil-
dren as eligible for purposes of federally funded welfare ben-
efts.” Ibid. It asks us to stay the injunction insofar as it
sweeps too broadly.
We decline to take up these arguments in the frst in-
stance. The lower courts should determine whether a nar-
rower injunction is appropriate; we therefore leave it to
them to consider these and any related arguments.
3
Respondents also defend universal injunctions as a matter
of policy. They argue that a universal injunction is some-
times the only practical way to quickly protect groups from
unlawful government action. See Opposition to Application
in No. 24A884 (CASA), at 26–27; see also A. Frost, In De-
fense of Nationwide Injunctions, 93 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1065,
1090–1094 (2018) (suggesting that universal injunctions are
appropriate when not all interested individuals can come
quickly to court); post, at 914–915 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting).
Respondents also contend that universal injunctions are an
appropriate remedy to preserve equal treatment among indi-
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viduals when the Executive Branch adopts a facially unlaw-
fu
l policy. Opposition to Application in No. 24A884 (CASA),
at 25–27; cf. post, at 899 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). And
they suggest that forcing plaintiffs to proceed on an individ-
ual basis can result in confusion or piecemeal litigation that
imposes unnecessary costs on courts and others. See Oppo-
sition to Application in No. 24A885 (Washington), at 31–32;
Frost, 93 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 1098–1101; see also post, at
908 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). So, they insist, universal
injunctions must be permitted for the good of the system.
The Government advances policy arguments running the
other way. Echoing Chief Judge Sutton, the Government
asserts that avoiding a patchwork enforcement system is a
justifcation that “lacks a limiting principle and would make
nationwide injunctions the rule rather than the exception”
for challenges to many kinds of federal law. Arizona, 40
F. 4th, at 397 (concurring opinion). It stresses—as the prin-
cipal dissent also observes—that universal injunctions incen-
tivize forum shopping, since a successful challenge in one ju-
risdiction entails relief nationwide. See Application in No.
24A884, at 19–20; see also post, at 899–900 (opinion of Soto-
mayor, J.). In a similar vein, the Government observes that
universal injunctions operate asymmetrically: A plaintiff
must win just one suit to secure sweeping relief. But to
fend off such an injunction, the Government must win every-
where. See Application in No. 24A884, at 19–20; see also post,
at 900 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.) (acknowledging this con-
cern).
15
Moreover, the Government contends, the practice of
universal injunctions means that highly consequential cases
are often decided in a “fast and furious” process of “ `rushed,
15
The Government contrasts this with class actions. A judgment in a
Rule 23 class action (favorable or not) binds the whole class—so if the
defendant wins, it is protected from future suits. But because an adverse
ruling on a request for universal relief lacks this preclusive effect, plain-
tiffs can continue to fle in different forums until they fnd a court willing
to award such relief.
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high-stakes, [and] low-information' ” decisionmaking. Lab-
rado
r, 601 U. S., at 1119 (Gorsuch, J., concurring in grant of
stay). When a district court issues a universal injunction,
thereby halting the enforcement of federal policy, the
Government says that it has little recourse but to proceed to
the court of appeals for an emergency stay. The loser in
the court of appeals will then seek a stay from this Court.
See Application in No. 24A884, at 20. This process forces
courts to resolve signifcant and diffcult questions of law on
a highly expedited basis and without full briefng. See
ibid.
16
The upshot: As with most disputed issues, there are argu-
ments on both sides. But as with most questions of law, the
policy pros and cons are beside the point. 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. Grupo Mexicano, 527
U. S., at 319. Nothing like a universal injunction was avail-
able at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a cen-
tury thereafter. Thus, under the Judiciary Act, federal
courts lack authority to issue them.
C
The principal dissent focuses on conventional legal terrain,
like the Judiciary Act of 1789 and our cases on equity. Jus-
16
Acknowledging these problems, the principal dissent admits that
“[t]here may be good reasons not to issue universal injunctions in the typi-
cal case.” Post, at 900 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.). This concession, while
welcome, is inconsistent with the position that the universal injunction is
a “nothing to see here” extension of the kind of decree obtained on a bill
of peace. Neither the principal dissent nor respondents have pointed to
any evidence that such decrees presented any of the universal injunction's
systemic problems or that they were reserved for situations in which the
defendant's conduct was “patently unconstitutional” and risked “excep-
tional” harm. Post, at 899–900. It is precisely because the universal in-
junction is a new, potent remedy that it poses new, potent risks. Our
observation in Grupo Mexicano rings true here: “Even when sitting as a
court in equity, we have no authority to craft a `nuclear weapon' of the
law.” 527 U. S., at 332.

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tice Jackson, however, chooses a startling line of attack
that
is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any
doctrine whatsoever. Waving away attention to the limits
on judicial power as a “mind-numbingly technical query,”
post, at 922 (dissenting opinion), she offers a vision of the
judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender
of judicial supremacy blush. In her telling, the fundamental
role of courts is to “order everyone (including the Executive)
to follow the law—full stop.” Ibid.; see also post, at 930
(“[T]he function of the courts—both in theory and in prac-
tice—necessarily includes announcing what the law requires
in . . . suits for the beneft of all who are protected by the
Constitution, not merely doling out relief to injured private
parties”); see also post, at 930–931, n. 3, 935. And, she
warns, if courts lack the power to “require the Executive to
adhere to law universally,” post, at 935, courts will leave a
“gash in the basic tenets of our founding charter that could
turn out to be a mortal wound,” post, at 932.
Rhetoric aside, Justice Jackson's position is diffcult to
pin down. She might be arguing that universal injunctions
are appropriate—even required—whenever the defendant is
part of the Executive Branch. See, e. g., post, at 923, 930–932,
936–937. If so, her position goes far beyond the mainstream
defense of universal injunctions. See, e. g., Frost, 93 N. Y. U.
L. Rev., at 1069 (“Nationwide injunctions come with signif-
cant costs and should never be the default remedy in cases
challenging federal executive action”). As best we can tell,
though, her argument is more extreme still, because its logic
does not depend on the entry of a universal injunction: Jus-
tice Jackson appears to believe that the reasoning behind
any court order demands “universal adherence,” at least
where the Executive is concerned. Post, at 922 (dissenting
opinion). In her law-declaring vision of the judicial function,
a district court's opinion is not just persuasive, but has the
legal force of a judgment. But see Haaland v. Brackeen,
599 U. S. 255, 294 (2023) (“It is a federal court's judgment,
not its opinion, that remedies an injury”). Once a single dis-
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trict court deems executive conduct unlawful, it has stated
what
the law requires. And the Executive must conform to
that view, ceasing its enforcement of the law against any-
one, anywhere.
17
We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which
is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent,
not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this:
Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while em-
bracing an imperial Judiciary.
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 vio-
lated the law but holding that the Court lacked jurisdiction
to issue a writ of mandamus ordering him to follow it). But
see post, at 935 (Jackson, J., dissenting) (“If courts do not
have the authority to require the Executive to adhere to law
universally, . . . compliance with law sometimes becomes a
matter of Executive prerogative”). Observing the limits on
judicial authority—including, as relevant here, the bound-
aries of the Judiciary Act of 1789—is required by a judge's
oath to follow the law.
17
Think about what this position means. If a judge in the District of
Alaska holds that a criminal statute is unconstitutional, can the United
States prosecute a defendant under that statute in the District of Mary-
land? Perhaps Justice Jackson would instinctively say yes; it is hard
to imagine anyone saying no. But why, on Justice Jackson's logic, does
it not violate the rule of law for the Executive to initiate a prosecution
elsewhere? See post, at 922 (dissenting opinion). Among its many prob-
lems, Justice Jackson's view is at odds with our system of divided judi-
cial authority. See, e. g., this Court's Rule 10(a) (identifying confict in the
decisions of the courts of appeals as grounds for granting certiorari). It
is also in considerable tension with the reality that district court opinions
lack precedential force even vis-à-vis other judges in the same judicial
district. See Camreta v. Greene, 563 U. S. 692, 709, n. 7 (2011).
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Justice Jackson skips over that part. Because analyz-
i
ng the governing statute involves boring “legalese,” post, at
923, she seeks to answer “a far more basic question of enor-
mous legal and practical signifcance: May a federal court in
the United States of America order the Executive to follow
the law?” Ibid. In other words, it is unnecessary to con-
sider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what
matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive.
Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition:
“[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.”
Ibid. That goes for judges too.
IV
Finally, the Government must show a likelihood that it will
suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. Nken, 556 U. S., at
434–435. 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 Gov-
ernment from enforcing its policies against nonparties. INS
v. Legalization Assistance Project of Los Angeles County
Federation of Labor, 510 U. S. 1301, 1306 (1993) (O'Connor,
J., in chambers). That is enough to justify interim relief.
The principal dissent disagrees, insisting that “it strains
credulity to treat the Executive Branch as irreparably
harmed” by these injunctions, even if they are overly broad.
Post, at 894 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.); see also Opposition
to Application in No. 24A884 (CASA), at 16–20. That is so,
the principal dissent argues, because the Executive Order is
unconstitutional. Thus, “the Executive Branch has no right
to enforce [it] against anyone.” Post, at 893.
The principal dissent's analysis of the Executive Order is
premature because the birthright citizenship issue is not be-
fore us.
18
And because the birthright citizenship issue is not
18
The dissent worries that the Citizenship Clause challenge will never
reach this Court, because if the plaintiffs continue to prevail, they will
have no reason to petition for certiorari. And if the Government keeps
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before us, we take no position on whether the dissent's analy-
sis
is right. The dissent is wrong to say, however, that a
stay applicant cannot demonstrate irreparable harm from a
threshold error without also showing that, at the end of the
day, it will prevail on the underlying merits. That is not
how the Nken factors work. See 556 U. S., at 434. For in-
stance, when we are asked to stay an execution on the
grounds of a serious legal question, we ask whether the capi-
tal defendant is likely to prevail on the merits of the issue
before us, not whether he is likely to prevail on the merits
of the underlying suit. See, e. g., Gutierrez v. Saenz, 603
U. S. 937 (2024) (granting application for a stay based on a
question implicating the prisoner's standing to attempt to
access DNA testing). The same is true when an applicant
seeks a stay in other contexts. See, e. g., Offce of Personnel
Management v. American Federation of Government Em-
ployees, 604 U. S. ––– (2025) (granting application for stay
because the organizational plaintiffs' allegations were “insuf-
fcient to support [their] standing ”). So too here.
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 con-
ferred by the Judiciary Act. The answer to that question is
yes. See Coleman v. Paccar Inc., 424 U. S. 1301, 1307–1308
(1976) (Rehnquist, C. J., in chambers); Trump v. Interna-
tional Refugee Assistance Project, 582 U. S. 571, 578–579
(2017) (per curiam); see also Maryland v. King, 567 U. S.
losing, it will “ha[ve] no incentive to fle a petition here . . . because the
outcome of such an appeal would be preordained.” Post, at 918 (opinion
of Sotomayor, J.). But at oral argument, the Solicitor General acknowl-
edged that challenges to the Executive Order are pending in multiple cir-
cuits, Tr. of Oral Arg. 50, and when asked directly “When you lose one of
those, do you intend to seek cert?”, the Solicitor General responded, “yes,
absolutely.” Ibid. And while the dissent speculates that the Govern-
ment would disregard an unfavorable opinion from this Court, the Solicitor
General represented that the Government will respect both the judgments
and the opinions of this Court. See id., at 62–63.
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1301, 1303 (2012) (Roberts, C. J., in chambers) (“ `[A]ny time
a
State is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes
enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of
irreparable injury' ” (alteration in original)). And the bal-
ance of equities does not counsel against awarding the Gov-
ernment interim relief: Partial stays will cause no harm to
respondents because they will remain protected by the pre-
liminary injunctions to the extent necessary and appropriate
to afford them complete relief.
***
Some say that the universal injunction “give[s] the Judi-
ciary a powerful tool to check the Executive Branch.”
Trump, 585 U. S., at 720 (Thomas, J., concurring) (citing S.
Amdur & D. Hausman, Nationwide Injunctions and Nation-
wide Harm, 131 Harv. L. Rev. Forum 49, 51, 54 (2017); S.
Malveaux, Class Actions, Civil Rights, and the National In-
junction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. Forum, 56, 57, 60–62 (2017)).
But federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the
Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies con-
sistent with the authority Congress has given them. When
a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted un-
lawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its
power, too.
The Government's applications to partially stay the pre-
liminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that
the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide com-
plete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue. The lower
courts shall move expeditiously to ensure that, with respect
to each plaintiff, the injunctions comport with this rule and
otherwise comply with principles of equity. The injunctions
are also stayed to the extent that they prohibit executive
agencies from developing and issuing public guidance about
the Executive's plans to implement the Executive Order.
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Thomas, J., concurring
the Executive Order shall not take effect until 30 days after
the
date of this opinion. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 55.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Gorsuch joins,
concurring.
The Court today holds that federal courts may not issue
so-called universal injunctions. I agree and join in full. As
the Court explains, the Judiciary Act of 1789—the statute
that “ `authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable reme-
dies' ”—does not permit universal injunctions. Ante, at 841.
It authorizes only those remedies traditionally available in
equity, and there is no historical tradition allowing courts to
provide “relief that extend[s] beyond the parties.” Ante, at
841–847. That conclusion is dispositive: As I have pre-
viously explained, “[i]f district courts have any authority to
issue universal injunctions,” it must come from some specifc
statutory or constitutional grant. Trump v. Hawaii, 585
U. S. 667, 713–714 (2018) (concurring opinion). But, the Ju-
diciary Act is the only real possibility, and serious constitu-
tional questions would arise even if Congress purported to
one day allow universal injunctions. See id., at 714, n. 2;
see also United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670, 693–694 (2023)
(Gorsuch, J., concurring in judgment).
I write separately to emphasize the majority's guidance
regarding how courts should tailor remedies specifc to the
parties. Courts must not distort “the rule that injunctive
relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than
necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” Cali-
fano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979). Otherwise, they
risk replicating the problems of universal injunctions under
the guise of granting complete relief.
As the Court recognizes, the complete-relief principle op-
erates as a ceiling: In no circumstance can a court award
relief beyond that necessary to redress the plaintiffs' inju-
ries. See ante, at 854 (“Complete relief is not a guarantee—
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it is the maximum a court can provide”). This limitation
fol
lows from both Article III and traditional equitable prac-
tice. Because Article III limits courts to resolving specifc
“Cases” and “Controversies,” see U. S. Const., Art. III, § 2,
it requires that any remedy “be tailored to redress the plain-
tiff 's particular injury.” Gill v. Whitford, 585 U. S. 48, 73
(2018). And, equitable remedies historically operated on
a plaintiff-specifc basis. Ante, at 842–844. Accordingly,
any “remedy must of course be limited to the inadequacy
that produced the injury in fact that the plaintiff has estab-
lished.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 357 (1996).
Courts therefore err insofar as they treat complete relief
as a mandate. Some judges have read our precedents to sug-
gest that courts should provide plaintiffs whatever remedy is
necessary to give them complete relief. See, e. g., Mock v.
Garland, 75 F. 4th 563, 587 (CA5 2023) (“[I]njunctions should
be crafted to `provide complete relief to the plaintiffs' ”); Z.
Siddique, Nationwide Injunctions, 117 Colum. L. Rev. 2095,
2106 (2017) (“[C]ourts . . . tailor their injunctions to provide
complete relief to the parties—no less and no more”). But,
that reading misunderstands the complete-relief principle.
This principle refects the equitable “rule that courts gen-
erally `may administer complete relief between the parties.' ”
Ante, at 851 (emphasis deleted). It is an important “aim of
the law of remedies . . . to put the plaintiff in her rightful
position.” S. Bray, Multiple Chancellors: Reforming the Na-
tional Injunction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 417, 466 (2017) (Bray).
But, “to say that a court can award complete relief is not to
say that it should do so.” Ante, at 853–854. And, in some
circumstances, a court cannot award complete relief.
As the Court today affrms, any relief must fall within tra-
ditional limits on a court's equitable powers. See ante, at
841–842 (citing Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. v. Alli-
ance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S. 308, 319 (1999); Payne v. Hook,
7 Wall. 425, 430 (1869)). Courts must ask whether the relief
plaintiffs seek “was traditionally accorded by courts of eq-
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uity.” Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 319. And, they must
ensure
that any injunctions comport with both the complete-
relief principle and other “principles of equity.” Ante, at
861. For example, courts may need to weigh considerations
such as equity's concern “with justice . . . also for the defend-
ant.” Bray 468; see H. McClintock, Handbook of the Princi-
ples of Equity 78 (2d ed. 1948). In some cases, traditional
equitable limits will require courts and plaintiffs to make do
with less than complete relief.
This Court's decision in Frothingham v. Mellon, decided
with Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923), exempli-
fes this constraint. Appellant Frothingham sought to “en-
join the execution of a federal appropriation act” on the
grounds that the Act exceeded the Government's authority
and that its execution would improperly increase her tax
burden. Id., at 479, 486. On a maximalist view of the
complete-relief principle, Frothingham would have been
entitled to a national injunction had her claim been meritori-
ous. After all, “a prohibition on using her tax money for
the [statute] would have been wholly ineffectual” in remedy-
ing the injury caused by unlawful federal spending, given
“the fungibility of money”: The Government would still have
been free to execute the statute, so long as it labeled the
underlying funds as coming from other taxpayers. Bray
431. A court thus would have needed to enjoin all spending
under the statute to provide effective relief. But, this Court
rejected Frothingham's request for such an injunction as be-
yond “the preventive powers of a court of equity.” 262
U. S., at 487. Among other reasons, it emphasized that an
individual taxpayer's “interest in the moneys of the Treas-
ury” was “comparatively minute and indeterminable,” and
that the petitioner had not suffered any “direct injury” but
rather was “suffer[ing] in some indefnite way in common
with people generally.” Id., at 487–488.*
*Although courts now treat Frothingham primarily as a case about tax-
payer standing, its analysis in fact “intertwine[d] concepts of equity, reme-
dies, and the judicial power.” Bray 430–433; see ante, at 844.

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To be sure, “[w]hat counts as complete relief ” can be a
di
ffcult question. Bray 467. Many plaintiffs argue that
only sweeping relief can redress their injuries. And, I do
not dispute that there will be cases requiring an “indivisible
remedy” that incidentally benefts third parties, Tr. of Oral
Arg. 14–15, such as “[i]njunctions barring public nuisances,”
Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 717 (Thomas, J., concurring). But,
such cases are by far the exception.
An indivisible remedy is appropriate only when it would
be “all but impossible” to devise relief that reaches only the
plaintiffs. Ante, at 852, n. 12. Such impossibility is a high
bar. For example, the Court today readily dispatches with
the individual and associational respondents' position that
they require a universal injunction, notwithstanding their
argument that a “plaintiff-specifc injunction” would be dif-
fcult to administer and would subject the associations' mem-
bers to the burden of having “to identify and disclose to the
government” their membership. Tr. of Oral Arg. 141–142.
As the Court recognizes, “prohibiting enforcement of the Ex-
ecutive Order against the child of an individual pregnant
plaintiff ” is all that is required to “give that plaintiff com-
plete relief.” Ante, at 852–853. Courts may not use the
complete-relief principle to revive the universal injunction.
***
For good reason, the Court today puts an end to the “in-
creasingly common” practice of federal courts issuing uni-
versal injunctions. Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 713 (Thomas, J.,
concurring). The Court also makes clear that the complete-
relief principle provides a ceiling on federal courts' authority,
which must be applied alongside other “principles of equity”
and our holding that universal injunctions are impermissible.
Ante, at 861. Lower courts should carefully heed this
Court's guidance and cabin their grants of injunctive relief
in light of historical equitable limits. If they cannot do so,
this Court will continue to be “dutybound” to intervene.
Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 721 (Thomas, J., concurring).
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Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins,
concurr
ing.
I join the opinion of the Court but write separately to note
two related issues that are left unresolved and potentially
threaten the practical signifcance of today's decision: the
availability of third-party standing and class certifcation.
First, the Court does not address the weighty issue
whether the state plaintiffs have third-party standing to as-
sert the Citizenship Clause claims of their individual resi-
dents. See ante, at 838, n. 2; see also ante, at 861 (“The
Government's applications to partially stay the preliminary
injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the in-
junctions are broader than necessary to provide complete re-
lief to each plaintiff with standing to sue” (emphasis added)).
Ordinarily, “a litigant must assert his or her own legal rights
and interests, and cannot rest a claim to relief on the legal
rights or interests of third parties.” Powers v. Ohio, 499
U. S. 400, 410 (1991). In limited circumstances, however, the
Court has permitted a party to assert the rights of a third
party. Admittedly, the Court has not pinned down the pre-
cise circumstances in which third-party standing is permissi-
ble. See Lexmark Int'l, Inc. v. Static Control Components,
Inc., 572 U. S. 118, 127, n. 3 (2014). And commentators have
emphasized the need for “greater doctrinal coherence.” C.
Bradley & E. Young, Unpacking Third-Party Standing, 131
Yale L. J. 1, 7 (2021) (Bradley & Young).
But at a minimum, we have said that a litigant seeking to
assert the legal rights or interests of others must demon-
strate ordinary Article III standing for itself and answer the
additional “threshold question whether [it has] standing to
raise the rights of others.” Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U. S.
125, 129 (2004). But see FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic
Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 398 (2024) (Thomas, J., concurring).
This latter requirement, as we have explained, entails a
showing that the litigant has a “close relationship” to the
right holder and that there is some “ `hindrance' ” to the right
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holder's ability to “protect his own interests.” Kowalski,
543
U. S., at 130 (quoting Powers, 499 U. S., at 411). So long
as third-party standing doctrine remains good law, federal
courts should take care to apply these limitations conscien-
tiously, including against state plaintiffs. That is especially
so in cases such as these, in which the parties claiming third-
party standing (i. e., the States) are not directly subject to
the challenged policy in the relevant respect and face, at
most, collateral injuries. See Bradley & Young 56–60.
Today's decision only underscores the need for rigorous
and evenhanded enforcement of third-party-standing limita-
tions. The Court holds today that injunctive relief should
generally extend only to the suing plaintiff. See ante, at
851–852. That will have the salutary effect of bringing an
end to the practice of runaway “universal” injunctions, but
it leaves other questions unanswered. Perhaps most impor-
tant, when a State brings a suit to vindicate the rights of
individual residents and then procures injunctive relief, does
the injunction bind the defendant with respect to all resi-
dents of that State? If so, States will have every incentive
to bring third-party suits on behalf of their residents to ob-
tain a broader scope of equitable relief than any individual
resident could procure in his own suit. Left unchecked, the
practice of refexive state third-party standing will under-
mine today's decision as a practical matter.
Second, today's decision will have very little value if dis-
trict courts award relief to broadly defned classes without
following “Rule 23's procedural protections” for class certif-
cation. Ante, at 849. The class action is a powerful tool,
and we have accordingly held that class “certifcation is
proper only if the trial court is satisfed, after a rigorous analy-
sis, that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been satisfed.”
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U. S. 338, 350–351 (2011)
(internal quotation marks omitted). These requirements
are more than “a mere pleading standard,” id., at 350, and a
hasty application of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil

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Procedure can have drastic consequences, creating “potential
unfair
ness” for absent class members and confusion (and
pressure to settle) for defendants. General Telephone Co. of
Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U. S. 147, 161 (1982). Recognizing
these effects, Congress took the exceptional step of authoriz-
ing interlocutory review of class certifcation. See Fed.
Rule Civ. Proc. 23(f ).
Putting the kibosh on universal injunctions does nothing
to disrupt Rule 23's requirements. Of course, Rule 23 may
permit the certifcation of nationwide classes in some dis-
crete scenarios. But district courts should not view today's
decision as an invitation to certify nationwide classes with-
out scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23. Other-
wise, the universal injunction will return from the grave
under the guise of “nationwide class relief,” and today's deci-
sion will be of little more than minor academic interest.
***
Lax enforcement of the requirements for third-par ty
standing and class certifcation would create a potentially
sig nificant loophole to today's decision. Federal courts
should thus be vigilant against such potential abuses of these
tools. I do not understand the Court's decision to refect
any disagreement with these concerns, so I join its decision
in full.
Justice Kavanaugh, concurring.
The plaintiffs here sought preliminary injunctions against
enforcement of the President's Executive Order on birth-
right citizenship. The District Courts granted universal
preliminary injunctions—that is, injunctions prohibiting en-
forcement of the Executive Order against anyone. Under
the Court's holding today, district courts issuing injunctions
under the authority afforded by the Judiciary Act of 1789
may award only plaintiff-specifc relief. I join the Court's
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Kavanaugh, J., concurring
careful and persuasive opinion, which will bring needed clar-
ity
to the law of remedies.
To be sure, in the wake of the Court's decision, plaintiffs
who challenge the legality of a new federal statute or execu-
tive action and request preliminary injunctive relief may
sometimes seek to proceed by class action under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) and ask a court to award
preliminary classwide relief that may, for example, be state-
wide, regionwide, or even nationwide. See ante, at 849–850;
A. A. R. P. v. Trump, 605 U. S. 91, 98 (2025) (per curiam);
Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 701–703 (1979). And
in cases under the Administrative Procedure Act, plaintiffs
may ask a court to preliminarily “set aside” a new agency
rule. 5 U. S. C. § 706(2); see, e. g., West Virginia v. EPA,
577 U. S. 1126 (2016); see also Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of
Governors, 603 U. S. 799, 826–843 (2024) (Kavanaugh, J.,
concurring).
1
But importantly, today's decision will require district
courts to follow proper legal procedures when awarding such
relief. Most signifcantly, district courts can no longer
award preliminary nationwide or classwide relief except
when such relief is legally authorized. And that salutary
development will help bring substantially more order and
discipline to the ubiquitous preliminary litigation over new
federal statutes and executive actions.
I write separately simply to underscore that this case fo-
cuses on only one discrete aspect of the preliminary litigation
relating to major new federal statutes and executive ac-
tions—namely, what district courts may do with respect to
those new statutes and executive actions in what might be
called “the interim before the interim.” Although district
courts have received much of the attention (and criticism)
1
In addition, as the Court notes, an injunction granting complete relief
to plaintiffs may also, as a practical matter, beneft nonparties. Ante, at
850–854.
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in debates over the universal-injunction issue, those courts
genera
lly do not have the last word when they grant or deny
preliminary injunctions. The courts of appeals and this
Court can (and regularly do) expeditiously review district
court decisions awarding or denying preliminary injunctive
relief. The losing party in the district court—the defendant
against whom an injunction is granted, or the plaintiff who
is denied an injunction—will often go to the court of appeals
to seek a temporary stay or injunction. And then the losing
party in the court of appeals may promptly come to this
Court with an application for a stay or injunction. This
Court has therefore often acted as the ultimate decider of
the interim legal status of major new federal statutes and
executive actions. See, e. g., Ohio v. EPA, 603 U. S. 279
(2024); Danco Laboratories, LLC v. Alliance for Hippocratic
Medicine, 598 U. S. ––– (2023); National Federation of Inde-
pendent Business v. OSHA, 595 U. S. 109 (2022) (per cu-
riam); Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health
and Human Servs., 594 U. S. 758 (2021) (per curiam); see
also Labrador v. Poe, 601 U. S. 1110, 1121–1122 (2024) (Kava-
naugh, J., concurring in grant of stay).
After today's decision, that order of operations will not
change. In justiciable cases, this Court, not the district
courts or courts of appeals, will often still be the ultimate
decisionmaker as to the interim legal status of major new
federal statutes and executive actions—that is, the interim
legal status for the several-year period before a fnal decision
on the merits.
I
The Court's decision today focuses on the “interim before
the interim”—the preliminary relief that district courts can
award (and courts of appeals can approve) for the generally
weeks-long interim before this Court can assess and settle
the matter for the often years-long interim before a fnal
decision on the merits. To appreciate the broader context
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surrounding today's decision, it is important to understand
th
is Court's role in preliminary litigation of this sort.
The basic scenario in these kinds of applications to this
Court is by now familiar. Congress passes a major new
statute, or the Executive Branch issues a major new rule or
executive order. The litigation over the legality of the new
statute or executive action winds its way through the federal
courts. And that litigation may meander on for many
months or often years before this Court can issue a fnal
ruling deciding the legality of the new statute or executive
action.
In the meantime, various plaintiffs may seek preliminary
injunctions, sometimes in many different district courts.
And a government defendant against whom a preliminary
injunction is granted (or a plaintiff who is denied a prelimi-
nary injunction) may seek a temporary stay or injunction in
the court of appeals and then in this Court.
That preliminary-injunction litigation—which typically
takes place at a rapid-fre pace long before the merits litiga-
tion culminates several years down the road—raises a ques-
tion: What should the interim legal status of the signifcant
new federal statute or executive action at issue be during
the several-year period before this Court's fnal ruling on
the merits?
That interim-status question is itself immensely impor-
tant. The issue of whether a major new federal statute or
executive action “is enforceable during the several years
while the parties wait for a fnal merits ruling . . . raises a
separate question of extraordinary signifcance to the parties
and the American people.” Labrador v. Poe, 601 U. S.
1110, 1121 (2024) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in grant of
stay).
The interim-status issue in turn raises two other critical
questions: Should there be a nationally uniform answer on
the question of whether a major new federal statute or exec-
utive action can be legally enforced in the often years-long
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interim period until this Court reaches a fnal decision on
the
merits? If so, who decides what the nationally uniform
interim answer is?
First, in my view, there often (perhaps not always, but
often) should be a nationally uniform answer on whether a
major new federal statute, rule, or executive order can be
enforced throughout the United States during the several-
year interim period until its legality is fnally decided on
the merits.
Consider just a few of the major executive actions that
have been the subject of intense preliminary-injunction or
other pre-enforcement litigation in the past 10 years or so,
under Presidents of both political parties. They range from
travel bans to birthright citizenship, from the Clean Power
Plan to student loan forgiveness, from the OSHA vaccine
mandate to the service of transgender individuals in the mili-
tary, from Title IX regulations to abortion drugs. And the
list goes on. Those executive actions often are highly sig-
nifcant and have widespread effects on many individuals,
businesses, governments, and other organizations through-
out the United States.
Often, it is not especially workable or sustainable or desir-
able to have a patchwork scheme, potentially for several
years, in which a major new federal statute or executive ac-
tion of that kind applies to some people or organizations in
certain States or regions, but not to others. The national
reach of many businesses and government programs, as well
as the regular movement of the American people into and
out of different States and regions, would make it diffcult to
sensibly maintain such a scattershot system of federal law.
Second, if one agrees that the years-long interim status of
a highly signifcant new federal statute or executive action
should often be uniform throughout the United States, who
decides what the interim status is?
The answer typically will be this Court, as has been the
case both traditionally and recently. This Court's actions

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873
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
in resolving applications for interim relief help provide clar-
ity
and uniformity as to the interim legal status of major
new federal statutes, rules, and executive orders. In par-
ticular, the Court's disposition of applications for interim re-
lief often will effectively settle, de jure or de facto, the in-
terim legal status of those statutes or executive actions
nationwide.
The decision today will not alter this Court's traditional
role in those matters. Going forward, in the wake of a
major new federal statute or executive action, different dis-
trict courts may enter a slew of preliminary rulings on the
legality of that statute or executive action. Or alterna-
tively, perhaps a district court (or courts) will grant or deny
the functional equivalent of a universal injunction—for ex-
ample, by granting or denying a preliminary injunction to a
putative nationwide class under Rule 23(b)(2), or by prelimi-
narily setting aside or declining to set aside an agency rule
under the APA.
No matter how the preliminary-injunction litigation on
those kinds of signifcant matters transpires in the district
courts, the courts of appeals in turn will undoubtedly be
called upon to promptly grant or deny temporary stays or
temporary injunctions in many cases.
And regardless of whether the district courts have issued
a series of individual preliminary rulings, or instead have
issued one or more broader classwide or set-aside prelimi-
nary rulings, the losing parties in the courts of appeals will
regularly come to this Court in matters involving major new
federal statutes and executive actions.
2
If there is no classwide or set-aside relief in those kinds of
nationally signifcant matters, then one would expect a food
of decisions from lower courts, after which the losing parties
on both sides will probably inundate this Court with applica-
2
By statute, some litigation may start in a court of appeals or three-
judge district court and then come directly to this Court.
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tions for stays or injunctions.
3
And
in cases where class-
wide or set-aside relief has been awarded, the losing side in
the lower courts will likewise regularly come to this Court
if the matter is suffciently important.
When a stay or injunction application arrives here, this
Court should not and cannot hide in the tall grass. When
we receive such an application, we must grant or deny.
4
And when we do—that is, when this Court makes a decision
on the interim legal status of a major new federal statute or
executive action—that decision will often constitute a form
of precedent (de jure or de facto) that provides guidance
throughout the United States during the years-long interim
period until a fnal decision on the merits.
3
That scenario explains why it would not make much sense for this
Court to apply different standards to (i) an application for an injunction
and (ii) an application for a stay of an injunction. See, e. g., Tandon v.
Newsom, 593 U. S. 61, 64 (2021) (per curiam) (applying the usual stay
standard to an application for an injunction).
Suppose a district court in Circuit A enjoins a new executive action.
And the court of appeals in Circuit A then declines to stay the injunction.
Meanwhile, a district court in Circuit B does not enjoin that new executive
action, and the court of appeals in Circuit B also declines to enjoin it.
Both cases come to this Court on applications for interim relief—one seek-
ing a stay of injunction and one seeking an injunction. It would not be
particularly rational to deny a stay and leave the injunction in place in
Circuit A, and then to turn around and deny an injunction in Circuit B on
account of a purportedly higher standard for this Court to grant injunc-
tions rather than stays. The standards should mesh so that this Court
can ensure uniformity without regard to the happenstance of how various
courts of appeals and district courts ruled.
4
To obtain an interim stay or injunction, “an applicant must show (1) a
reasonable probability that four Justices will consider the issue suffciently
meritorious to grant certiorari; (2) a fair prospect that a majority of the
Court will vote to reverse the judgment below; and (3) a likelihood that
irreparable harm will result from the denial” of the application. Hollings-
worth v. Perry, 558 U. S. 183, 190 (2010) (per curiam); see Tandon, 593
U. S., at 64. The Court may also consider (4) the “balance” of “the equi-
ties” and “relative harms” to the parties. Hollingsworth, 558 U. S., at
190.
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Kavanaugh, J., concurring
II
It
is sometimes suggested, however, that this Court should
adopt a policy of presumptively denying applications for
stays or injunctions—even applications involving signifcant
new federal statutes or executive actions—regardless of
which way the various lower courts have ruled. That sug-
gestion is fawed, in my view, because it would often leave an
unworkable or intolerable patchwork of federal law in place.
And even in cases where there is no patchwork—for exam-
ple, because an application comes to us with a single nation-
wide class-action injunction—what if this Court thinks the
lower court's decision is wrong? On student loan forgive-
ness or the Clean Power Plan or mifepristone or the travel
bans, for example? Should we have a rule of presumptively
denying relief, thereby allowing erroneous injunctions (or er-
roneous denials of injunctions) of major new statutes and
executive actions to remain in place for several years, and
thus severely harming the Government and would-be bene-
fciaries of (or regulated parties under) those new statutes
and executive actions? I think not. And this Court's ac-
tions over the years refect that the Court thinks not.
Unless and until this Court grants or denies an application
for stay or injunction, tremendous uncertainty may surround
the interim legal status of the new federal statute or execu-
tive action throughout the country. The statute or execu-
tive action may be in effect in some places but not others,
for some businesses but not others, for some Americans but
not others. That temporary geographic, organizational, and
individual variation in federal law might not warrant this
Court's intervention in run-of-the-mill cases—which is why
it makes sense that this Court denies applications for interim
relief when the Court is unlikely to later grant certiorari.
See Does 1–3 v. Mills, 595 U. S. 1029 (2021) (Barrett, J.,
concurring in denial of application for injunctive relief ).
But in cases involving major new federal statutes or execu-
tive actions, uniformity is often essential or at least sensible
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and prudent. In those kinds of cases, disuniformity—even
i
f only for a few years or less—can be chaotic. And such
chaos is not good for the law or the country.
One of this Court's roles, in justiciable cases, is to resolve
major legal questions of national importance and ensure uni-
formity of federal law. So a default policy of off-loading to
lower courts the fnal word on whether to green-light or
block major new federal statutes and executive actions for
the several-year interim until a fnal ruling on the merits
would seem to amount to an abdication of this Court's
proper role.
Some might object that this Court is not well equipped to
make those signifcant decisions—namely, decisions about
the interim status of a major new federal statute or execu-
tive action—on an expedited basis. But district courts and
courts of appeals are likewise not perfectly equipped to make
expedited preliminary judgments on important matters of
this kind. Yet they have to do so, and so do we. By law,
federal courts are open and can receive and review applica-
tions for relief 24/7/365. See 28 U. S. C. § 452 (“All courts of
the United States shall be deemed always open for the pur-
pose of fling proper papers . . . and making motions and
orders”). And this Court has procedural tools that can help
us make the best possible interim decision in the limited time
available—administrative stays, additional briefng, amicus
briefs, oral argument, certiorari before judgment, and the
like. On top of that, this Court has nine Justices, each of
whom can (and does) consult and deliberate with the other
eight to help the Court determine the best answer, unlike a
smaller three-judge court of appeals panel or one-judge dis-
trict court. And this Court also will have the beneft of the
prior decisions in the case at hand from the court of appeals
and the district court.
Some might argue that preliminary disputes over the le-
gality of major new statutes and executive actions can draw
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Kavanaugh, J., concurring
we might like, as distinct from what happens on our slower-
mov
ing merits docket. That is an understandable concern.
But when it comes to the interim status of major new federal
statutes and executive actions, it is often important for rea-
sons of clarity, stability, and uniformity that this Court be
the decider. And Members of the Court have life tenure so
that we can make tough calls without fear or favor. As with
the merits docket, the Court's role in resolving applications
for interim relief is to neutrally referee each matter based
on the relevant legal standard. Avoiding controversial or
diffcult decisions on those applications is neither feasible
nor appropriate.
Some might also worry that an early or rushed decision on
an application could “lock in” the Court's assessment of the
merits and subtly deter the Court from later making a differ-
ent fnal decision. But in deciding applications for interim
relief involving major new statutes or executive actions, we
often have no choice but to make a preliminary assessment
of likelihood of success on the merits; after all, in cases of
that sort, the other relevant factors (irreparable harm and
the equities) are often very weighty on both sides. See Lab-
rador v. Poe, 601 U. S. 1110, 1122 (2024) (Kavanaugh, J.,
concurring in grant of stay). Moreover, judges strive to
make the correct decision based on current information not-
withstanding any previous assessment of the merits earlier
in the litigation. It is not uncommon to think and decide
differently when one knows more. This Court has done so
in the past, see West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319
U. S. 624 (1943), and undoubtedly will continue to do so in
the future.
To reiterate, this Court should not insert itself into run-
of-the-mill preliminary-injunction cases where we are not
likely to grant certiorari down the road. But determining
the nationally uniform interim legal status for several years
of, say, the Clean Power Plan or Title IX regulations or mife-
pristone rules is a role that the American people appropri-
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ately expect this Court—and not only the courts of appeals
or
district courts—to fulfll.
***
The volume of preliminary-in junc ti on and other pre-
enforcement litigation over new federal laws and executive
actions coming to this Court has been growing in recent years.
That trend is in part the result of the increasing number of
major new executive actions by recent Presidential adminis-
trations (of both political parties) that have had diffculty
passing signifcant new legislation through Congress.
Meanwhile, applications for stays or injunctions in capital-
punishment cases, election disputes, and other time-sensitive
matters (including numerous COVID–19-related disputes in
the few years beginning in 2020) have also continued to come
to this Court on a steady basis, as they traditionally have.
Although the volume of applications has increased, the
Court's responsibility for deciding consequential applications
for stays or injunctions is not new. See, e. g., West Virginia
v. EPA, 577 U. S. 1126 (2016) (temporarily enjoining Clean
Power Plan); Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1 (2006) (per cu-
riam) (vacating injunction pending appeal regarding state
voter ID law); Rubin v. United States, 524 U. S. 1301 (1998)
(Rehnquist, C. J., in chambers) (denying stay pending certio-
rari of order enforcing subpoenas to Secret Service agents
regarding their observations of the President); Schlesinger
v. Holtzman, 414 U. S. 1321 (1973) (Marshall, J., in chambers)
(staying District Court's injunction that had ordered a halt
to bombing in Cambodia); Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v.
Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 584, 589 (1952) (after expedited oral
argument, affrming District Court's preliminary injunction
that proscribed seizure of steel mills by government); cf. Ro-
senberg v. United States, 346 U. S. 273, 283–285 (1953) (vacat-
ing stay of execution of the Rosenbergs).
Today's decision on district court injunctions will not af-
fect this Court's vitally important responsibility to resolve
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
applications for stays or injunctions with respect to major
new
federal statutes and executive actions. Deciding those
applications is not a distraction from our job. It is a critical
part of our job. With that understanding, I join the Court's
opinion in full.
Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and
Justice Jackson join, dissenting.
Children born in the United States and subject to its laws
are United States citizens. That has been the legal rule
since the founding, and it was the English rule well before
then. This Court once attempted to repudiate it, holding in
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), that the children
of enslaved black Americans were not citizens. To remedy
that grievous error, Congress passed in 1866 and the States
ratifed in 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship
Clause, which enshrined birthright citizenship in the Consti-
tution. There it has remained, accepted and respected by
Congress, by the Executive, and by this Court. Until today.
It is now the President who attempts, in an Executive
Order (Order or Citizenship Order), to repudiate birthright
citizenship. Every court to evaluate the Order has deemed
it patently unconstitutional and, for that reason, has enjoined
the Federal Government from enforcing it. Undeterred, the
Government now asks this Court to grant emergency relief,
insisting it will suffer irreparable harm unless it can deprive
at least some children born in the United States of citizen-
ship. See Protecting the Meaning and Value of American
Citizenship, Exec. Order No. 14160, 90 Fed. Reg. 8449 (2025).
The Government does not ask for complete stays of the
injunctions, as it ordinarily does before this Court. Why?
The answer is obvious: To get such relief, the Government
would have to show that the Order is likely constitutional,
an impossible task in light of the Constitution's text, history,
this Court's precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch
practice. So the Government instead tries its hand at a dif-
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ferent game. It asks this Court to hold that, no matter how
i
llegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Execu-
tive to stop enforcing it against anyone. Instead, the Gov-
ernment says, it should be able to apply the Citizenship
Order (whose legality it does not defend) to everyone except
the plaintiffs who fled this lawsuit.
The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the
Government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet, shamefully,
this Court plays along. A majority of this Court decides
that these applications, of all cases, provide the appropriate
occasion to resolve the question of universal injunctions and
end the centuries-old practice once and for all. In its rush
to do so the Court disregards basic principles of equity as
well as the long history of injunctive relief granted to
nonparties.
No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.
Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a
different administration may try to seize frearms from law-
abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gath-
ering to worship. The majority holds that, absent cumber-
some class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin
even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is neces-
sary to afford the formal parties complete relief. That hold-
ing renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name
only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit.
Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our
system of law, I dissent.
I
The majority ignores entirely whether the President's Ex-
ecutive Order is constitutional, instead focusing only on the
question whether federal courts have the equitable authority
to issue universal injunctions. Yet the Order's patent un-
lawfulness reveals the gravity of the majority's error and
underscores why equity supports universal injunctions as ap-
propriate remedies in this kind of case. As every conceiv-
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881
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
able source of law confrms, birthright citizenship is the law
of
the land.
A
The Citizenship Clause provides that “[a]ll persons born or
naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdic-
tion thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the
State wherein they reside.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, § 1.
That means what it says. Nestled i n the Four teenth
Amendment alongside the Equal Protection Clause, the Citi-
zenship Clause does not discriminate on the basis of race,
sex, ethnicity, religion, or, importantly here, parentage. It
refers instead to “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the
United States.” Ibid.
Besides birth, there is only one condition: that one be “sub-
ject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Yet that con-
dition too leaves no room for ambiguity. To be “subject to
the jurisdiction” of the United States means simply to be
bound to its authority and its laws. See 1 N. Webster, An
American Dictionary of the English Language 732 (C. Good-
rich & N. Porter eds. 1865) (defning jurisdiction as the
“[p]ower of governing or legislating,” or “the power or right
of exercising authority”). As the Government would pre-
sumably concede, virtually everyone born in the United
States and present in its territory is subject to its authority
and its laws. After all, “[t]he jurisdiction of the nation
within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and abso-
lute.” Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 7 Cranch 116, 136
(1812) (Marshall, C. J., for the Court). Once a citizen of an-
other nation steps onto United States soil, she is (with nar-
row exception) “amenable to the jurisdiction” of the United
States. Id., at 144. That is why “no plausible distinction
with respect to Fourteenth Amendment `jurisdiction' can be
drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United
States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was un-
lawful.” Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 211, n. 10 (1982).
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Few constitutional questions can be answered by resort
to
the text of the Constitution alone, but this is one. The
Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship.
B
Unsurprisingly given the clarity of the Citizenship
Clause's text, every other source of interpretation confrms
this conclusion. Consider, frst, its history. Long before
the Fourteenth Amendment, and indeed before the founding,
the common-law rule of jus soli (literally, right of the soil)
governed English citizenship. That rule rendered a per-
son's birthplace determinative of her citizenship status.
Thus, “[t]he children of aliens, born . . . in England,” gener-
ally were “natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privi-
leges of such.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws
of England 361–362 (1765); see also H. Broom & G. Denman,
Constitutional Law Viewed in Relation to Common Law 31
(2d ed. 1885) (describing Calvin's Case (1608), which estab-
lished that “[e]very one born within the dominions of the
King of England . . . is . . . entitled to enjoy all the rights
and liberties of an Englishman”).
That English common-law rule carried over to the United
States after the founding. Shortly after the Constitution's
ratifcation, James Madison observed that “it [was] an estab-
lished maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance,” i. e., of
citizenship. 1 Annals of Cong. 404 (1789). Birth, he ex-
plained, could convey citizenship in two ways: either through
“place” (under the “right of the soil” principle) or through
“parentage” (as for one born to United States citizens).
Ibid. “[B]ut, in general,” Madison explained, “place is the
most certain criterion” and “it is what applies in the United
States.” Ibid. Mere decades later, Justice Story wrote
that “[n]othing is better settled . . . than the doctrine that
the children even of aliens born in a country . . . are subjects
by birth.” Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbour in
City of New York, 3 Pet. 99, 164 (1830). Well before the
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Fourteenth Amendment, then, it was the undisputed “law of
the
United States [that] every person born within the domin-
ions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were the
situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen.” Lynch v.
Clarke, 1 Sand. Ch. 583, 663 (N. Y. Ch. 1844).
Though the law was clear, the Nation did not always live
up to its promise. Infamously, this Court departed from the
birthright citizenship principle in Dred Scott, 19 How. 393,
holding that the children of enslaved black Americans “are
not included, and were not intended to be included, under
the word `citizens' in the Constitution.” Id., at 404. Fol-
lowing the Civil War, the Reconstruction Congress corrected
that grave error. Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866,
14 Stat. 27, declared that “all persons born in the United
States and not subject to any foreign power” would be “citi-
zens of the United States.” The Fourteenth Amendment's
guarantee of birthright citizenship followed two years later.
The lawmakers who ratifed the Fourteenth Amendment
understood that it would extend citizenship to all children
born here, regardless of parental citizenship. Indeed, some
objected to its passage on those grounds, complaining that
it would permanently extend citizenship to immigrants who
“invade [state] borders” and “settle as trespassers.” Cong.
Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2891 (1866). Proponents
agreed, if not with the anti-immigrant sentiment, that the
Clause would extend citizenship to the children of immi-
grants. For example, Senator Conness of California (one of
the Amendment's lead supporters) confrmed on the foor
“that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be
declared by the Constitution of the United States to be enti-
tled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law.”
Id., at 2892. “We have declared that by law” in the Civil
Rights Act, he explained, and “now it is proposed to incorpo-
rate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the
nation.” Id., at 2891. Not one Senator disagreed with this
understanding of the Clause.
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In the end, “[t]he Citizenship Clause was no legal innova-
ti
on.” J. Ho, Defning “American”: Birthright Citizenship
and the Original Understanding of the 14th Amendment, 9
Green Bag 2d 367, 369 (2006); see also id., at 368 (“Birthright
citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
That birthright is protected no less for children of undocu-
mented persons than for descendants of Mayfower passen-
gers”). “It simply restored the longstanding English com-
mon law doctrine of jus soli” abrogated by Dred Scott. Ho,
9 Green Bag 2d, at 369; see also M. Ramsey, Originalism and
Birthright Citizenship, 109 Geo. L. J. 405, 472 (2020) (The
“central purpose” of the Citizenship Clause “was, of course,
to overrule Dred Scott”).
C
Following the ratifcation of the Fourteenth Amendment,
this Court confrmed the Amendment's plain meaning in
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649 (1898). At
issue was the citizenship of Wong Kim Ark, a young Califor-
nia resident born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant par-
ents. Id., at 652. When Wong returned to California from
a trip to China, a custom's collector denied him entry on the
sole ground that he was not a citizen of the United States.
Id., at 653.
This Court held that “[t]he Fourteenth Amendment af-
frms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth
within the territory.” Id., at 693. As the President does
today, the Government in Wong Kim Ark rested its case on
the Clause's sole qualifer. Wong was not subject to the ju-
risdiction of the United States, the Government claimed, be-
cause at birth his parents were aliens in the United States
who were “subjects of the emperor of China,” thus making
Wong a subject of the emperor of China as well. Id., at 652–
653. This Court squarely rejected that attempt to limit the
Citizenship Clause's reach. Instead, it held, the “ `subject to
the jurisdiction' ” qualifer excludes only “children born of
alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplo-
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matic representatives of a foreign State,” id., at 682, “with
the
single additional exception of children of members of the
Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes,”
id., at 693.
1
That holding conclusively settled any remaining dispute
over the Citizenship Clause's meaning. Since then, all three
branches of Government have unfinchingly adhered to it.
This Court, for one, has repeatedly reaffrmed Wong Kim
Ark's holding. Notwithstanding legislation purporting to
render Japanese persons “ineligible” for citizenship, we held
in Morrison v. California, 291 U. S. 82 (1934), that a child
with Japanese parents “is a citizen of the United States if he
was born within the United States.” Id., at 85. The Court
recognized the same rule even during World War II, when
individuals of Japanese ancestry were subject to curfew and
exclusion orders. See Hirabayashi v. United States, 320
U. S. 81, 96–97 (1943). So too has the Court recognized that
the child of parents unlawfully present in the United States
“is, of course, an American citizen by birth.” United States
ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U. S. 72, 73 (1957).
The same is true of children whose parents gained admission
into the United States by unlawful means. See, e. g., INS v.
1
The frst two exceptions “ha[d] already been shown, by the law of Eng-
land, and by our own law, from the time of the frst settlement of the
English colonies in America, [to be] recognized exceptions to the funda-
mental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.” Wong Kim Ark,
169 U. S., at 682. The additional exception for certain children born to
Indian tribe members refected the country's historical understanding that
Indian tribes were “quasi foreign nations” within the physical boundaries
of the United States. See Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2890 (1866).
Treaties between many tribes and the Federal Government, at the time,
ensured that it was the tribe, and not the United States Government, that
had “prescriptive and law enforcement authority” over tribal members.
M. Ramsey, Originalism and Birthright Citizenship, 109 Geo. L. J. 405,
443–444 (2020); see id., at 442–444. Congress eventually extended birth-
right citizenship to tribal members born in the United States in 1924.
See Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, ch. 233, 43 Stat. 253, 8 U. S. C. § 1401(b).
These exceptions are not at issue in these cases.
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Errico, 385 U. S. 214, 215–216 (1966); INS v. Rios-Pineda,
471
U. S. 444, 446 (1985).
Congress, for its part, has also reaffrmed the principles of
birthright citizenship by enshrining it in a federal statute.
Section 201 of the Nationality Act of 1940 provides that all
those “born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdic-
tion thereof,” “shall be nationals and citizens of the United
States at birth.” 8 U. S. C. § 1401(a); see also Taggart v. Lor-
enzen, 587 U. S. 554, 560 (2019) (recognizing “longstanding
interpretive principle” that if statutory term “is ` “obviously
transplanted from another legal source,” ' it ` “brings the old
soil with it” ' ”).
For at least the last century, the Executive Branch has
adhered to the same principle. When Congress proposed to
reaffrm birthright citizenship in the 1940 Nationality Act,
cabinet offcials described it as “a statement of the common-
law rule, which has been in effect in the United States from
the beginning of its existence.” House Committee on Immi-
gration and Naturalization, Nationality Laws of the United
States, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (Comm. Print 1939). Indeed,
the Government concedes even now that the Executive
Branch has recognized the vitality of birthright citizenship
“at least back to World War II, if not earlier.” App. to Op-
position to Application in No. 24A886, p. 323a. That ex-
plains, among other things, why the Social Security Adminis-
tration and the Department of State have long accepted
proof of one's birthplace as proof of citizenship. See 44 Fed.
Reg. 10369, 10371 (1979); 20 CFR §§ 422.107(d), 422.103(c)(2)
(2024); 22 CFR §§ 51.40, 51.42 (2024).
Some decades ago, the Offce of Legal Counsel was asked
to respond to a House bill that would have denied birthright
citizenship to “ `children born in the United States to parents
who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.' ” 19 Op.
OLC 340, 341 (1995). The answer well summed up the state
of the law: This “offce grapples with many diffcult and close
issues of constitutional law. The lawfulness of this bill is not
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among them. This legislation is unquestionably unconstitu-
ti
onal.” Ibid.
II
A
Undeterred by the Constitution, history, Supreme Court
precedent, federal law, and longstanding Executive Branch
practice, President Donald J. Trump issued Executive Order
No. 14160 on the day of his inauguration that purported to
redefne American citizenship. The Order declares that
United States citizenship does not extend to persons who are
born to a mother unlawfully present in the United States, or
lawfully present on a temporary basis, and a father who is
neither a citizen nor lawful permanent resident. Ibid. It
further prohibits federal agencies from issuing citizenship
documentation to such persons or accepting state documen-
tation to that effect, and it directs a slew of federal offcials
to conform agency regulations to the Order. Id., at 8449–
8450. The prohibition, according to the Order, applies “only
to persons who are born within the United States after 30
days from the date of th[e] order.” Id., at 8449.
B
Shortly after the President issued the Citizenship Order,
several groups of plaintiffs (together, respondents) chal-
lenged the Order in Federal District Courts in Maryland,
Massachusetts, and Washington. Respondents include: a
group of pregnant women
2
whose children will not be United
States citizens under the terms of the Citizenship Order; two
immigrants-rights organizations with thousands of members
across the country who are likely to give birth to children
2
Two of these women seek to represent a class of pregnant women and
children residing in Washington State, who are affected by the Citizenship
Order. See Complaint in No. 2:25–cv–00127 (WD Wash., Feb. 4, 2025),
ECF Doc. 106. The District Court has yet to rule on the certifcation of
that putative class.
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who would also be denied citizenship under the Order; and
22
States, the District of Columbia, and the city of San Fran-
cisco. In their respective suits, respondents asserted that
the Citizenship Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment
and § 1401(a).
Respondents also sought a preliminary injunction barring
enforcement of the Citizenship Order during the pendency
of the litigation. If allowed to go into effect, they said, the
policy would infict irreparable harm on their children (and
their members' children) by denying them “enjoyment of the
full privileges, rights, and benefts that come with U. S. citi-
zenship,” and rendering them vulnerable to unlawful depor-
tation before the Courts could adjudicate their constitutional
claim. Complaint in No. 8:25–cv–00201 (D Md., Jan. 21,
2025), p. 6, ¶12; see also Complaint in No. 2:25–cv–00127 (WD
Wash., Feb. 4, 2025), ECF Doc. 106, pp. 33–36, ¶¶120–139
(Washington Complaint).
As for the States, they attested that enforcement of the
Citizenship Order would cost them millions of dollars in fed-
eral funding and impose signifcant administrative burdens.
The States “administer numerous programs for the beneft
of their residents, including for newborns and young chil-
dren, some of whom are wards of the Plaintiff States who are
entitled to care by statute.” Id., at 23, ¶79. Those social
welfare programs include ones provided for by state law, as
well as ones established by federal law, such as Medicaid and
the Children's Health Insurance Program: Several of them
“are funded in part by federal dollars, with federal funding
frequently tied to the citizenship and immigration status of
the individuals served.” Ibid. By stripping some children
within the States of their citizenship, the Order would re-
duce the States' federal funding, “forc[ing the States] to bear
signifcantly increased costs to operate and fund programs
that ensure the health and well-being of their residents.”
Id., at 6, ¶8, 4–5, ¶6; see also Opposition to Application in
No. 24A886 (New Jersey), pp. 9–11; Complaint in No. 1:25–
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cv–10139 (D Mass., Jan. 21, 2025), pp. 23–42, ¶¶121–201.
Relatedly
, because the States must verify the citizenship sta-
tus of the individuals they serve, the States alleged that the
Citizenship Order would force them to expend signifcant
sums to “modif[y] their . . . operational structures and admin-
istration” to account for the changes in citizenship. Wash-
ington Complaint 6, ¶8; see also Opposition to Application in
No. 24A886 (New Jersey), at 9–11.
All three District Courts preliminarily enjoined enforce-
ment of the Citizenship Order. Each court determined that
the Citizenship Order was likely unlawful, that respondents
were likely to face irreparable harm without an injunction,
and that the equities and public interest cut decisively in
respondents' favor. See 763 F. Supp. 3d 723, 727, 744–745
(Md. 2025); 765 F. Supp. 3d 1142, 1152–1153 (WD Wash. 2025);
Doe v. Trump, 766 F. Supp. 3d 266, 274, 285–287 (Mass. 2025).
The District Courts further determined that only injunc-
tions blocking the Citizenship Order's enforcement nation-
wide would completely redress respondents' injuries. For
the organizational plaintiffs, the Maryland District Court ex-
plained that those plaintiffs have “ `over 680,000 members . . .
who reside in all 50 U. S. states' ” and “hundreds of them
expect to give birth soon.” 763 F. Supp. 3d, at 746. The
Washington District Court found that “a geographically lim-
ited injunction would be ineffective” for the state plaintiffs
“as it would not completely relieve [the States] of the Order's
fnancial burden(s).” 765 F. Supp. 3d, at 1153. For one
thing, that court explained, the constant fow of people mov-
ing in and out of various States meant some children born
to noncitizen parents in a nonplaintiff State would later re-
side in a plaintiff State. Once there, those children (under
state law) would be eligible for state benefts. Yet due to
the Citizenship Order, the plaintiff States would no longer
receive federal funding to support those benefts. In addi-
tion, the plaintiff States would have to create an entirely
new administrative and recordkeeping system to accommo-
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date children who were not citizens under the Order and
bor
n in a nonplaintiff State. So if the District Court allowed
birthright citizenship to continue for children born in the
plaintiff States, but not in any other State, that would not
completely redress the States' fnancial injury. Ibid.
For identical reasons, the Massachusetts District Court
also found that the state plaintiffs' injuries could be re-
dressed only by a universal injunction. See 766 F. Supp. 3d,
at 288 (“The harms [the States] have established stem from
the [Order's] impact on the citizenship status—and the abil-
ity to discern or verify such status—for any child located or
seeking various services within their jurisdiction”).
The Government fled motions to stay the injunctions in
three separate Courts of Appeals. Nowhere did the Gov-
ernment contest the District Courts' uniform holdings that
the Citizenship Order likely violated the Constitution. In-
stead, it challenged only the scope of the ordered relief, ar-
guing that the injunctions should be narrowed to block the
Order's enforcement against only the individual persons
named in the complaints.
All three appellate courts denied the Government's re-
quest and left the preliminary injunctions intact. See 131
F. 4th 27 (CA1 2025); 2025 WL 654902 (CA4, Feb. 28, 2025);
2025 WL 553485 (CA9, Feb. 19, 2025). The Fourth Circuit,
which reviewed the preliminary injunction issued to the or-
ganizational plaintiffs, concluded that “[t]he district court . . .
carefully explained why an injunction limited to the par-
ties—including organizations with hundreds of thousands of
members nationwide—would be unworkable in practice and
thus fail to provide complete relie[f] to the plaintiffs.” 2025
WL 654902, *1. The First and Ninth Circuits left undis-
turbed the Massachusetts and Washington District Courts'
respective determinations that only universal injunctions
would fully redress the States' injuries. See 131 F. 4th, at
42–43; 2025 WL 553485, *1.
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On March 13, the Government fled emergency applica-
ti
ons with this Court requesting partial stays of the three
preliminary injunctions of the Citizenship Order. The Gov-
ernment renews its contention that the injunctions must be
narrowed to beneft only formal parties in these cases.
III
In partially granting the Government's remarkable re-
quest, the Court distorts well-established equitable princi-
ples several times over. A stay, this Court has said, “ `is
not a matter of right,' ” but rather “ `an exercise of judicial
discretion.' ” Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 433 (2009). For
centuries, courts have “close[d] the doors” of equity to those
“tainted with inequitableness or bad faith relative to the
matter in which [they] seek relief.” Precision Instrument
Mfg. Co. v. Automotive Maintenance Machinery Co., 324
U. S. 806, 814 (1945). Yet the majority throws the doors of
equity open to the Government in a case where it seeks to
undo a fundamental and clearly established constitutional
right. The Citizenship Order's patent unlawfulness is rea-
son enough to deny the Government's applications.
The Government also falls well short of satisfying its bur-
den to show that it will likely suffer irreparable harm absent
a stay and that it will likely succeed on the merits of its
challenge to the scope of the injunctions. Nken, 556 U. S.,
at 434–435. The Executive Branch has respected birthright
citizenship for well over a century, and it advances no plausi-
ble reason why maintaining the status quo while the litiga-
tion proceeds would cause it irrevocable harm. Nor could
it, for the Constitution and federal law prohibit the enforce-
ment of the Citizenship Order.
For all that, moreover, the Government is not even correct
on the merits of universal injunctions. To the contrary, uni-
versal injunctions are consistent with long-established prin-
ciples of equity, once respected by this Court. What is
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more, these cases do not even squarely present the legality
of
universal injunctions. That is because, even if the major-
ity were right that injunctions can only offer “complete relief
to the plaintiffs before the court,” ante, at 852, each of the
lower courts here correctly determined that the nationwide
relief they issued was necessary to remedy respondents' in-
juries completely. So even ignoring the traditional stay fac-
tors and accepting the majority's view of the merits, there is
no reason to grant relief in these cases.
A
It is a bedrock principle that parties who request a stay
must show they will likely suffer irreparable harm absent
such relief. Indeed, “[t]he authority to grant stays has his-
torically been justifed by the perceived need `to prevent ir-
reparable injury to the parties or to the public' pending re-
view.” Nken, 556 U. S., at 432 (quoting Scripps-Howard
Radio, Inc. v. FCC, 316 U. S. 4, 9 (1942)). Thus, an apparent
likelihood of success on the merits never suffces on its own
to justify this Court's intervention: Our emergency docket is
not a mechanism for an expedited appeal. Accordingly,
“this Court can avoid delving into the merits” “[i]f the [appli-
cant does not] demonstrat[e an] irreparable harm.” Labra-
dor v. Poe, 601 U. S. 1110, 1122 (2024) (Kavanaugh, J., concur-
ring in grant of stay); contra, ante, at 875–878 (Kavanaugh,
J., concurring).
What grave harm does the Executive face that prompts a
majority of this Court to grant it relief ? The answer, the
Government says, is the inability to enforce the Citizenship
Order against nonparties. For the majority, that answer
suffces. See ante, at 859 (“When a federal court enters a
universal injunction against the Government, it `improper[ly]
intrude[s]' on `a coordinate branch of the Government' and
prevents the Government from enforcing its policies against
nonparties”).
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The problem, however, is that the Executive Branch has
no
right to enforce the Citizenship Order against anyone.
As the Executive itself once put it, the Order is “unquestion-
ably unconstitutional.” Supra, at 887. It defes logic to say
that maintaining a centuries-long status quo for a few
months longer will irreparably injure the Government. See
Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, 602 U. S. 339, 345–346 (2024)
(The “purpose” of equitable relief “ `is merely to preserve the
relative positions of the parties until a trial on the merits
can be held' ”). The President's “mandate . . . to exercise his
executive power,” Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 123
(1926), in any event, does not permit him to rewrite the Con-
stitution or statutory provisions at a whim. By forging
ahead and granting relief to the Government anyway, this
Court endorses the radical proposition that the President is
harmed, irreparably, whenever he cannot do something he
wants to do, even if what he wants to do is break the law.
The majority claims that it can sidestep “analysis of the
Executive Order” altogether because (in its view) every
overbroad injunction necessarily causes irreparable harm
suffcient to warrant emergency intervention. Ante, at 859.
Yet where a purportedly overbroad injunction orders the
Government to do only what this Court has expressly held
it is required to do, it is hard to see how it could cause any
harm. At oral argument, the Government conceded it was
bound to follow this Court's precedent. See Tr. of Oral Arg.
62–63. This Court's precedent establishes beyond a shade
of doubt that the Executive Order is unconstitutional. See
supra, at 880–887. Thus, by enjoining the Government
from violating settled law, the District Courts' orders do not
cause the Government any harm.
The majority's contrary position is self-refuting. Suppose
an executive order barred women from receiving unemploy-
ment benefts or black citizens from voting. Is the Govern-
ment irreparably harmed, and entitled to emergency relief,
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by a district court order universally enjoining such policies?
The
majority, apparently, would say yes.
Nothing in this Court's precedents supports that result.
It turns one of the “ `most critical' factors we must consider
in deciding whether to grant a stay” into a box-checking ex-
ercise whenever the relevant enjoined action is an executive
one. Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project,
582 U. S. 571, 584 (2017) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and
dissenting in part). Even accepting that “[a]ny time a State
is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by
representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable
injury,” Maryland v. King, 567 U. S. 1301, 1303 (2012) (Rob-
erts, C. J., in chambers), that democratic consideration cuts
against the Government in these cases. Through the ratif-
cation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress and the
States constitutionalized birthright citizenship. Congress
also codifed birthright citizenship in § 1401(a). It is thus
the Citizenship Order, not the District Courts' injunctions,
that prevents the “ `effec tuat[i on] ' ” of a constituti ona l
amendment and repeals a “ `statut[e] enacted by representa-
tives of [the American] people.' ” Id., at 1303.
Simply put, it strains credulity to treat the Executive
Branch as irreparably harmed by injunctions that direct it
to continue following settled law. “All the offcers of the
government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of
the law, and are bound to obey it.” United States v. Lee,
106 U. S. 196, 220 (1882); but see Trump v. United States,
603 U. S. 593 (2024). The injunctions do no more harm to
the Executive than the Constitution and federal law do.
B
A majority of this Court nonetheless rushes to address the
merits of the Government's applications, holding that univer-
sal injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that
Congress has granted to federal courts.” Ante, at 837. A
majority that has repeatedly pledged its fealty to “history
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and tradition” thus eliminates an equitable power frmly
grounded
in centuries of equitable principles and practice.
By stripping all federal courts, including itself, of that power,
the Court kneecaps the Judiciary's authority to stop the Ex-
ecutive from enforcing even the most unconstitutional poli-
cies. That runs directly counter to the point of equity: em-
powering courts to do complete justice, including through
fexible remedies that have historically benefted parties and
nonparties alike.
1
A brief recounting of equity's history demonstrates the
majority's grave error. The American legal system grew
out of English law, which had two primary judicial institu-
tions: the common-law courts and equity courts. Equity
courts arose because of the infexibility of the common-law
system; their purpose was to look beyond formal writs and
provide remedies where the common law gave inadequate
relief. In Blackstone's words, equity was meant “to give
remedy in cases where none was before administered.” 3
Commentaries on the Laws of England, at 50.
Adaptability has always been a hallmark of equity, espe-
cially with regard to the scope of its remedies. While
common-law courts were “compelled to limit their inquiry to
the very parties in the litigation before them,” equity courts
could “adjust the rights of all, however numerous,” and
“adapt their decrees to all the varieties of circumstances,
which may arise, and adjust them to all the peculiar rights
of all the parties in interest.” 1 J. Story, Commentaries on
Equity Jurisprudence § 28, pp. 27–28 (2d ed. 1839). After
all, equity's “constant aim” was “to do complete justice.” J.
Story, Commentaries on Equity Pleadings § 72, p. 74 (2d ed.
1840). Accordingly, equity courts could “decid[e] upon and
settl[e] the rights of all persons interested in the subject-
matter of the suit, so that the performance of the decree of
the Court may be perfectly safe to those, who are compelled
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to obey it, and also, that future litigation may be pre-
vented.
” Ibid.
For equity courts, injunctions were “manifestly indispen-
sable for the purposes of social justice in a great variety of
cases.” 2 Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence
§ 959a, at 227. Unlike this Court, then, those courts “con-
stantly decline[d] to lay down any rule, which shall limit
their power and discretion as to the particular cases, in
which such injunctions shall be granted, or withheld.” Ibid.
Justice Story underscored the “wisdom in this course”: Eq-
uity courts needed fexibility to craft injunctions for particu-
lar cases, as it was “impossible to foresee all the exigencies of
society which may require their aid and assistance to protect
rights or redress wrongs.” Ibid.
In their pursuit of complete justice, equity courts could
award injunctive and other equitable relief to parties and
nonparties alike. For centuries, they did so through what
was known as “bills of peace.” If a plaintiff or group of
plaintiffs fled such a bill, an English court could use a single
case to settle disputes affecting whole communities, for “the
inherent jurisdiction of equity” included the power “to inter-
fere for the prevention of a multiplicity of suits.” 1 J. Pom-
eroy, Equity Jurisprudence § 260, p. 278 (1881). Bills of
peace issued in cases “ `where the parties [were] very numer-
ous, and the court perceive[d] that it [would] be almost im-
possible to bring them all before the court; or where the
question is of general interest, and a few may sue for the
beneft of the whole.' ” Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U. S.
815, 832 (1999) (quoting West v. Randall, 29 F. Cas. 718, 722
(No. 17,424) (CC RI 1820) (Story, J.)). In such cases, a court
could “grant [equitable relief] without making other persons
parties,” instead considering them “quasi parties to the rec-
ord, at least for the purpose of taking the beneft of the de-
cree, and of entitling themselves to other equitable relief, if
their rights [were] jeopard[iz]ed.” Id., at 723.
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
Early American courts embraced bills of peace and ex-
tended
their logic to cases “which [were] not technically `bills
of peace,' but `[were] analogous to,' or `within the principle'
of such bills.” 1 Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence § 269, at
293. One example was taxpayer suits, which allowed courts
to enjoin universally the enforcement of a challenged tax.
Sometimes, such suits were fled “by any number of taxpay-
ers joined as co-plaintiffs, or by one taxpayer suing on behalf
of himself and all others similarly situated.” Id., at 277.
But taxpayer suits were not always representative in nature:
Even “a single taxpayer suing on his own account,” if victori-
ous, could enjoin the collection of a tax against anyone.
Ibid. Individual plaintiffs, moreover, could secure an order
“to set aside and annul any and every illegal public offcial
action . . . whereby a debt . . . would be unlawfully created.”
Ibid. By allowing “complete and fnal relief [to] be given to
an entire community by means of one judicial decree,” Amer-
ican courts (like their English counterparts) spared nonpar-
ties and themselves from the burden of “an indefnite amount
of separate litigation.” Id., at 278.
Federal courts have also exercised equitable authority to
enjoin universally federal and state laws for more than a
century. For instance, before deciding the constitutionality
of a new federal law in Lewis Publishing Co. v. Morgan, 229
U. S. 288 (1913), this Court entered an order blocking the
law's enforcement against parties and nonparties. See M.
Sohoni, The Lost History of the “Universal” Injunction, 133
Harv. L. Rev. 920, 944–946 (2020). In Lewis, two newspaper
publishers challenged as unconstitutional a federal law re-
quiring publishers to fle with the Postmaster General twice-
yearly disclosures about their editorial board membership,
corporate ownership, and subscribership. Sohoni, 133 Harv.
L. Rev., at 944. After the District Court upheld the law and
authorized a direct appeal to the Supreme Court, one of the
publishers moved for a restraining order. The proposed

898 TR
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order sought relief not only for the publisher who fled it, but
asked
the Court to “ `restrai[n]' ” the Postmaster General and
other federal offcials from enforcing the law against “ `appel-
lant and other newspaper publishers.' ” Id., at 946. This
Court readily agreed, see Journal of Commerce and Com-
mercial Bulletin v. Burleson, 229 U. S. 600, 601 (1913)
(per curiam), even as it would have suffced for the movant
publishers' sake to enjoin the Act's enforcement against them
alone pending their appeal.
In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925), too,
this Court affrmed a universal injunction of Oregon's com-
pulsory public schooling law. See Sohoni, 133 Harv. L. Rev.,
at 959–962. Two private school owners challenged that law
in a suit against the Governor of Oregon and other state
offcials. “The plaintiffs did not sue on behalf of a repre-
sented group or class; they sued for themselves, alleging that
the law was an unconstitutional interference with their prop-
erty rights.” Id., at 959. Yet a three-judge federal court
awarded them a universal injunction. See id., at 960–961.
This Court, in affrming that relief, twice described it as “ap-
propriate.” Pierce, 268 U. S., at 530, 533. The Court un-
derstood that the injunction it affrmed would provide relief
to nonparties, commenting that such relief was necessary be-
cause enforcing the Act would result not only in the “de-
struction of appellees' primary schools,” but would also de-
stroy “perhaps all other private primary schools for normal
children within the State of Oregon.” Id., at 534.
Cases like Lewis and Pierce were not outliers. Through-
out the early 20th century, federal courts granted universal
injunctions even when a narrower remedy would have suf-
fced to redress the parties' injuries. See, e. g., West Vir-
ginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943) (affrm-
ing an injunction that shielded the plaintiff class of Jehovah's
Witnesses, and any other children with religious scruples,
from complying with a state law requiring children to salute
the American fag); see also Sohoni, 133 Harv. L. Rev., at
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
943–993 (collecting cases). It is certainly true that federal
cour
ts have granted more universal injunctions of federal
laws in recent decades. But the issuance of broad equitable
relief intended to beneft parties and nonparties has deep
roots in equity's history and in this Court's precedents.
The universal injunctions of the Citizenship Order ft
frmly within that tradition. The right to birthright citizen-
ship is “clear,” the Citizenship Order is an “ `illegal act,' ” and
without the “ `preventive process of injunction,' ” the right
will be “ `irreparably injured.' ” Arthur v. Oakes, 63 F. 310,
328 (CA7 1894) (Harlan, J.) (describing standard for when an
injunction should issue). It would be “ `almost impossible,' ”
moreover, “ `to bring . . . all [affected individuals] before the
court,' ” Ortiz, 527 U. S., at 832, justifying the use of one suit
to settle the issue of the Citizenship Order's constitutionality
for all affected persons. See 1 Pomeroy, Equity Jurispru-
dence § 260, at 450–451. Complete justice, the “constant
aim” of equity, Story, Commentaries on Equity Pleadings
§ 72, at 74, demands a universal injunction: “ `the only rem-
edy which the law allows to prevent the commission' ” of a
fagrantly illegal policy. Arthur, 63 F., at 328. The District
Courts, by granting such relief, appropriately “settle[d] the
rights of all persons interested in the subject-matter” of
these suits, binding the Government so as to prevent need-
less “future litigation. ” Story, Commentaries on Equity
Pleadings § 72, at 74.
Of course, as a matter of equitable discretion, courts may
often have weighty reasons not to award universal relief.
Among other things, universal injunctions can prevent dif-
ferent district and appellate courts from considering the
same issues in parallel, forestalling the legal dialogue (or
“percolation”) the federal system uses to answer diffcult
questions correctly. Not so here, however, because the Citi-
zenship Order is patently unconstitutional under settled law
and a variety of district and appellate courts have reviewed
the issue. So too can universal injunctions encourage forum
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shopping, by allowing preferred district judges in a venue
picked
by one plaintiff to enjoin governmental policies na-
tionwide. They also operate asymmetrically against the
Government, giving plaintiffs a litigation advantage: To halt
Government action everywhere, a plaintiff must win only one
universal injunction across many potential lawsuits. Yet
this is not a scenario where granting universal relief will
encourage forum shopping or give plaintiffs the upper hand.
Quite the opposite: By awarding universal relief below, the
District Courts just ordered the Government to do every-
where what any reasonable jurist would order the Govern-
ment to do anywhere.
There may be good reasons not to issue universal injunc-
tions in the typical case, when the merits are open to
reasonable disagreement and there is no claim of extraordi-
nary and imminent irreparable harm.
3
See 2 Story, Commen-
taries on Equity Jurisprudence § 959a, at 227 (“[Injunctive re-
lief] ought . . . to be guarded with extreme caution, and applied
only in very clear cases”); cf. ante, at 848 (“[The] use [of bills
of peace] was confned to limited circumstances”). The uni-
versal injunctions in these cases, however, are more than
appropriate. These injunctions, after all, protect newborns
from the exceptional, irreparable harm associated with losing
a foundational constitutional right and its immediate bene-
fts. They thus honor the most basic value of our constitu-
tional system: They keep the Government within the bounds
of law. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163 (1803).
2
The majority's contrary reasoning falls fat. The majority
starts with the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gives federal
3
These prudential considerations, however, have nothing to do with
whether universal injunctions are consistent with historical equitable
principles and practice. Contra, ante, at 856, n. 16; but cf. ante, at 856
(“[T]he policy pros and cons [of universal injunctions] are beside the
point”).

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901
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
courts jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity.” § 11, 1 Stat.
78.
In the majority's telling, universal injunctions are in-
consistent with equity jurisdiction because they are not “suf-
fciently `analogous' to the relief exercised ` “by the High
Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of
the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary
Act.” ' ” Ante, at 841–842 (quoting Grupo Mexicano de De-
sarrollo, S. A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S. 308,
318–319 (1999)). In reaching that ahistorical result, the
Court claims that the English Chancellor's remedies were
“typically” party specifc, and emphasizes that party-specifc
principles have permeated this Court's understanding of eq-
uity. Ante, at 842–844.
The majority's argument stumbles out the gate. As the
majority must itself concede, injunctions issued by English
courts of equity were “typically,” but not always, party spe-
cifc. Ante, at 842. After all, bills of peace, for centuries,
allowed English courts to adjudicate the rights of parties not
before it, and to award remedies intended to beneft entire
affected communities. Taxpayer suits, too, could lead to a
complete injunction of a tax, even when only a single plaintiff
fled suit.
The majority seeks to distinguish bills of peace from uni-
versal injunctions by urging that the former (but not the
latter) typically applied to small and cohesive groups and
were representative in nature. See ante, at 849. Yet those
are distinctions without a difference. Equity courts had the
fexibility to “adapt their decrees to all the varieties of
circumstances, which may arise, and adjust them to all
the peculiar rights of all the parties in interest.” 1 Story,
Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence § 28, at 28. There
is no equitable principle that caps the number of parties
in interest. Indeed, in taxpayer suits, a single plaintiff
could get the relief of “annul[ling] any and every kind of
tax or assessment” that applied to an entire “county,
town, or city.” 1 Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence § 260, at
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277.
4
“
[T]he inherent jurisdiction of equity to interfere for
the prevention of a multiplicity of suits,” moreover, is what
empowered common law courts to issue bills of peace. Id.,
at 450–451 (4th ed. 1918). That is why early American
courts understood taxpayer suits, in which even a “single
taxpayer suing on his own account” and not on behalf of oth-
ers could secure a total injunction, to be a natural extension
of a bill of peace. Id., at 277 (1881).
5
It is also unclear why “ `cohesive[ness]' ” or “representa-
tive[ness]” would preclude even those universal injunctions
that, like here, beneft a discrete and cohesive group. Ante,
at 848. The Citizenship Order itself applies only to a subset
group of newborn children: that is, children born to a mother
unlawfully or temporarily present, and a father who is nei-
ther a citizen nor lawful permanent resident. Those moth-
4
Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923), which addressed a tax-
payer's standing to challenge a federal appropriation, did not consider how
broadly a court could enjoin Government action and is therefore not to the
contrary. Id., at 488; contra, ante, at 850.
5
The majority asserts that taxpayer suits are an “inadequate historical
analogy” for a universal injunction, ibid., but cannot dispute their essential
similarity: By providing relief to an entire affected community, both do
more than merely redress a plaintiff 's injuries. Instead, the majority
says that single-plaintiff, nonrepresentative taxpayer suits cannot be
proper “historical” analogues because they trace only back to the “mid-
19th century.” See ibid. Yet the same is true of plaintiff-protective in-
junctions against federal and state government offcials, an equitable rem-
edy the majority embraces by reference to “a long line of cases authorizing
suits against state offcials in certain circumstances” that range from the
cusp of the mid-19th century to the late mid-19th century. Ante, at 846,
n. 9. In any event, early American courts deemed taxpayer suits “ `analo-
gous to,' [and] `within the principle of ' . . . bills [of peace],' ” 1 Pomeroy,
Equity Jurisprudence § 269, at 293, which trace back to the equitable prac-
tice of the English Chancery Court, ante, at 848. Nor is it clear why it
matters that individual taxpayer suits occurred in state courts, or that
those courts did not always award the broad injunctions available to them.
Contra, ante, at 850. The relevant question is simply whether a court of
equity could award injunctive relief to nonparties. The answer to that
question is, obviously, yes.

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903
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
ers and fathers share “not only [a common] interest in the
questi
on, but one in common in the subject-matter of th[is]
suit.” Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 107, 116 (1897). Nor is
there any doubt that at least the individual respondents ade-
quately represent the injunction's benefciaries: Like all af-
fected parents, they “are necessarily interested in obtaining
the relief sought” to preserve their children's citizenship.
Emmons v. National Mut. Bldg. & Loan Assn. of NY, 135
F. 689, 691 (CA4 1905) (explaining the “well-known doctrine
of equity jurisprudence” that “ `the relief sought by [a plain-
tiff]' ” must be “ `benefcial to those whom he undertakes to
represent' ” (quoting 1 E. Daniell, Chancery Practice *242
(6th Am. ed. 1894))). What was true of bills of peace is thus
true of these universal injunctions and universal injunctions
generally, too: Both allow courts to “ `adjudicate the rights
of members of dispersed groups without formally joining
them to a lawsuit through the usual procedures.' ” Ante,
at 848.
That bills of peace bear some resemblance to modern day
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 class actions does not
mean they cannot also be a historical analogue to the univer-
sal injunction. Contra, ante, at 849 (“The bill of peace lives
in modern form” as the “modern class action . . . governed
in federal court by Rule 23,” “not as the universal injunc-
tion”). In the majority's view, Rule 23 class actions, but not
universal injunctions, would “be recognizable to an English
Chancellor” because the limitations on class actions mirror
those that applied to bills of peace. Ibid. (Rule 23 “requires
numerosity (such that joinder is impracticable), common
questions of law or fact, typicality, and representative par-
ties who adequately protect the interests of the class”);
cf. supra, at 902 (explaining why the universal injunctions
in these cases are consistent with those limits). To the
extent that English Chancellors would care about the dif-
ferences between Rule 23 and universal injunctions, the
majority provides absolutely no reason to conclude they
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would think the former permissible and not the latter. To
the
contrary, unlike the Court today, the English Chancery
Court recognized that principles of equity permit granting
relief to nonparties. The history of bills of peace makes that
apparent, particularly because they went beyond what Rule
23 permits. See ante, at 849 (The modern “Rule 23 is in
some ways `more restrictive of representative suits than the
original bills of peace' ”). They are thus a common ancestor
to both class actions and universal injunctions.
In any event, nothing in Rule 23 purports to supplant or
modify federal courts' equitable authority under the Judi-
ciary Act to grant relief to nonparties, nor could it. Contra,
ante, at 849–850. The majority frets that universal injunc-
tions, if permissible, will empower federal courts to create
de facto class actions at will, thereby circumventing Rule
23's procedural protections. Ibid. Those concerns, how-
ever, have not been borne out in reality. Rule 23 has coex-
isted with universal injunctions against the Government for
decades. Universal injunctions also cannot supplant the
paradigm form of class actions, which seek money damages.
In all events, to the extent the majority's concern has any
teeth, reviewing courts are already well equipped to safe-
guard Rule 23's procedural protections. If there is a genu-
ine lack of clarity as to the lawfulness of challenged Govern-
ment action, district courts may well abuse their discretion
by refexively issuing universal injunctions where a Rule 23
class action would be more appropriate. See Ashcroft v.
American Civil Liberties Union, 542 U. S. 656, 664 (2004)
(standard of review for preliminary injunctions is “ `abuse
of discretion' ”).
The majority next insists that the practice of “founding-
era courts of equity in the United States” cuts against uni-
versal injunctions, and that this Court “consistently rebuffed
requests for relief that extended beyond the parties.” Ante,
at 843. The majority's account is irreconcilable with early
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905
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
American bills of peace and the history of taxpayer suits. It
fur
ther contradicts this Court's practice, in cases like Lewis,
Pierce, and Barnette, of affrming and granting universal in-
junctions even when narrower, plaintiff-focused injunctions
would have offered complete relief to the parties. See
supra, at 897–898. The majority instead focuses on one case
from 1897, in which this Court “permitted only a narro[w]
decree between `the parties named as plaintiff and defend-
ants in the bill,' ” ante, at 843 (quoting Scott, 165 U. S., at
117), over others, including from the same period, doing just
the opposite. The majority offers no principled basis to
deem the question resolved by a single case from 1897 while
cases just a few years later charted a different course. In-
deed, if the relevant inquiry turns on “founding-era prac-
tice,” then there is no reason why a case from 1897 should
be dispositive. Ante, at 845, n. 7.
In the majority's telling, Scott merely “illustrates that as
late as 1897, this Court adhered to a party-specifc view of
relief.” Ante, at 843, n. 6. Nothing in Scott, however, dic-
tates that equitable relief must always be party specifc. To
the contrary, just one year after Scott, the Court endorsed
the opposite view: “Only a court of equity,” the Court ex-
plained, “is competent to . . . determine, once for all and
without a multiplicity of suits, matters that affect not simply
individuals, but the interests of the entire community. ”
Smyth v. Ames, 169 U. S. 466, 518 (1898); see also id., at 517
(“[T]he Circuit Court of the United States, sitting in equity,
can make a comprehensive decree covering the whole ground
of controversy and thus avoid the multiplicity of suits that
would inevitably arise under the statute”).
6
The majority
6
Regardless of the actual decree the Smyth court approved, see ante,
at 843, n. 6, its analysis clearly reveals that the Court understood equity
to permit broad relief intended to beneft parties and nonparties alike.
That is why this Court later approved or granted universal injunctions
in Lewis, Pierce, and Barnette without “address[ing] the propriety of uni-
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does not identify a single case, from the founding era or oth-
er
wise, in which this Court held that federal courts may
never issue universal injunctions or broad equitable relief
that extends to nonparties. That is to be expected, given
the historical support for such relief and its use in bills of
peace and taxpayer suits.
Most critically, the majority fundamentally misunder-
stands the nature of equity by freezing in amber the precise
remedies available at the time of the Judiciary Act. Even
as it declares that “ `[e]quity is fexible,' ” ante, at 846, the
majority ignores the very fexibility that historically allowed
equity to secure complete justice where the rigid forms of
common law proved inadequate. Indeed, “[i]n th[e] early
times [of the common law] the chief juridical employment of
the chancellor must have been in devising new writs, di-
rected to the courts of common law, to give remedy in cases
where none before was administered.” 3 Blackstone, Com-
mentaries on the Laws of England, at 50. Adaptability has
thus always been at the equity's core. Hence why equity
courts “constantly decline[d] to lay down any rule, which
shall limit their power and discretion as to the particular
cases, in which such injunctions shall be granted, or with-
held.” 2 Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence
§ 959(a), at 227. The Judiciary Act of 1789 codifed equity
itself, not merely a static list of remedies.
Historical analogues are no doubt instructive and provide
important guidance, but requiring an exact historical match
for every equitable remedy defes equity's purpose. Equity
courts understood the “wisdom” in keeping injunctive relief
fexible, for it was “impossible to foresee all the exigencies of
society which may require their aid and assistance to protect
rights or redress wrongs.” Ibid. Of course, in assessing
whether a remedy falls within federal courts' equity jurisdic-
tion under the Judiciary Act, this Court has asked “whether
versal relief.” Ante, at 845, n. 7. See also Lewis Publishing Co. v. Mor-
gan, 229 U. S. 288 (1913); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925);
West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943).
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907
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
the relief . . . was traditionally accorded by courts of equity.”
G
rupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 319. Grupo Mexicano, how-
ever, does not dictate the level of generality for that histori-
cal inquiry, and general principles of equity that themselves
existed at the founding militate against requiring a near
exact match as the majority does. Cf. United States v. Ra-
himi, 602 U. S. 680, 692 (2024) (“The law must comport with
the principles underlying the Second Amendment, but it
need not be a `dead ringer' or a `historical twin' ”).
Indeed, equitable relief in the United States has evolved
in one respect to protect rights and redress wrongs that even
the majority does not question: Plaintiffs today may obtain
plaintiff-protective injunctions against Government offcials
that block the enforcement of unconstitutional laws, relief
exemplifed by Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). That
remedy, which traces back to the equity practice of mid-19th
century courts, fnds no analogue in the relief exercised in
the English Court of Chancery, which could not enjoin the
Crown or English offcers. See supra, at 902, n. 4; see also
Sohoni, 133 Harv. L. Rev., at 928, 1002–1006; see also R.
Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler's The
Federal Courts and the Federal System 958–959 (5th
ed. 2003) (noting that, in Young, “the threatened conduct of
the defendant would not have been an actionable wrong
at common law” and that the “principle [in Young] has
been easily absorbed in suits challenging federal offcial ac-
tion”). Under the majority's rigid historical test, however,
even plaintiff-protective injunctions against patently un-
lawful Government action should be impermissible.
7
Such a
result demonstrates the folly of treating equity as a closed
system, rather than one desig ned to adapt to new
circumstances.
7
The majority's expressed support for such injunctions is thus irrecon-
cilable with its view that equitable remedies must be very closely “ `analo-
gous' to the relief exercised ` “by the High Court of Chancery in England
at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the
original Judiciary Act.” ' ” Ante, at 841–842.

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The relative absence of universal injunctions against the
U
nited States before the late 20th century, moreover, refects
constitutional and procedural limitations on judicial power,
not equitable ones. Brief for Legal Historians as Amici Cu-
riae in No. 24A884, pp. 13–16. Until the enactment of the
Amendments to the Administrative Procedure Act in 1976,
sovereign immunity barred most suits against the Federal
Government. Id., at 14–15 (citing G. Sisk, Litigation With
the Federal Government § 4.10(b), p. 339 (2016)). Offcer
suits against Cabinet offcials before that point, moreover,
could be brought only in Washington, D. C., due to limits on
personal jurisdiction and venue that existed at the time.
Brief for Legal Historians as Amici Curiae in No. 24A884,
at 15–16. The later emergence of universal injunctions
against the United States followed the removal of those bar-
riers and the expansion of federal actions and laws. The
rise of universal injunctions therefore represents equity's es-
sential adaptation to modern governance.
It is a “common expression . . . that Courts of Equity
delight to do justice, and not by halves.” Story, Commen-
taries on Equity Pleadings § 72, at 74. The majority, how-
ever, delights to do justice by piecemeal. Its decision to
strip the federal courts of the authority to issue universal
injunctions of even fagrantly unlawful Government action
represents a grave and unsupported diminution of the judi-
cial power of equity. Centuries ago, Chief Justice Marshall
warned that “[i]f the legislatures of the several states may,
at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United
States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judg-
ments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery.”
United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch 115, 136 (1809). The Court
should have heeded that warning today.
C
Even the majority's view of the law cannot justify issuance
of emergency relief to the Government in these cases, for the
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
majority leaves open whether these particular injunctions
may
pass muster under its ruling. Indeed, the lower courts
issued the challenged injunctions consistent with an equita-
ble principle that even the majority embraces: Courts may
award an equitable remedy when it is “necessary to provide
complete relief to the plaintiffs.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442
U. S. 682, 702 (1979). As the majority recounts, “[t]he equi-
table tradition has long embraced the rule that courts gener-
ally `may administer complete relief between the parties.' ”
Ante, at 851 (quoting Kinney-Coastal Oil Co. v. Kieffer, 277
U. S. 488, 507 (1928); emphasis deleted).
8
So too does the Court recognize that, in some cases, com-
plete relief will require a broad remedy that necessarily ben-
efts nonparties. See ante, at 852, n. 12 (“There may be
other injuries for which it is all but impossible for courts to
craft relief that is both complete and benefts only the named
plaintiffs”); see also Gill v. Whitford, 585 U. S. 48, 66–67
(2018) (“[T]he only way to vindicate an individual plaintiff 's
right to an equally weighted vote [is] through a wholesale
`restructuring of the geographical distribution of seats in a
state legislature' ”). Hence the majority's nuisance hypo-
thetical: If a plaintiff sues her neighbor for playing loud
music at night, a court can order the neighbor to turn off the
music at night, even if doing so will naturally beneft other
neighbors who are not parties to the suit. See ante, at
851–852.
The majority need not resort to hypotheticals, however,
because the very injunctions in these cases were necessary
to give respondents complete relief. Indeed, each District
Court found that a universal injunction was the only feasible
option to redress fully respondents' injuries. See 763
F. Supp. 3d, at 746 (concluding that “[o]nly a nationwide in-
8
That explains the majority's bottom line, in which it declares that the
Government's applications are “granted, but only to the extent that the
injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each
plaintiff with standing to sue.” Ante, at 861.
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junction will provide complete relief to the plaintiffs” be-
cause
the organizational plaintiffs have “ `over 680,000 mem-
bers . . . who reside in all 50 U. S. states and several U. S.
territories' ” and “ `[h]undreds or even thousands' ” of those
members “ `will give birth to children in the United States
over the coming weeks and months' ” (alterations in origi-
nal)); 765 F. Supp. 3d, at 1153 (“[A] geographically limited
injunction would be ineffective, as it would not completely
relieve [the plaintiff States] of the Order's fnancial bur-
den(s)”); 766 F. Supp. 3d, at 288 (explaining that “injunctive
relief limited to the State plaintiffs [would be] inadequate”
because it would “fai[l] in providing complete relief to the
State plaintiffs”).
Recognizing as much, the majority retreats to the view
that, even if a court “can award complete relief,” it “should
[not] do so” refexively. Ante, at 853–854; see also ante, at
854 (“Complete relief is not a guarantee—it is the maximum
a court can provide”); ante, at 863 (opinion of Thomas, J.)
(suggesting courts “err insofar as they treat complete relief
as a mandate”). Even so, the Court never suggests that the
District Courts in these cases should not have awarded relief
to the parties that completely remedied their alleged inju-
ries. Nor could it. The majority recognizes that “in equity,
`the broader and deeper the remedy the plaintiff wants, the
stronger the plaintiff's story needs to be.' ” Ante, at 854.
Here, respondents paired their respective requests for com-
plete relief with the strongest story possible: Without such
relief, an executive order that violates the Constitution, fed-
eral law, Supreme Court precedent, history, and over a cen-
tury of Executive Branch practice would infringe upon their
constitutional rights or cause them to incur signifcant fnan-
cial and administrative costs.
Perhaps that is why the majority leaves open the possibil-
ity that the District Courts, in these cases, could have
granted at least respondent States a nationwide injunction
consistent with the notion of “complete relief.” The major-
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ity recognizes, correctly, that the Massachusetts District
Cour
t “decided that a universal injunction was necessary to
provide the States themselves with complete relief.” Ante,
at 853.
9
And the majority does not dispute the basis for
those decisions: “Children often move across state lines or
are born outside their parents' State of residence,” and
“th[is] cross-border fow” would make an injunction protect-
ing only children born in the party States “unworkable.”
Ibid. A narrower injunction would “require [the States] to
track and verify the immigration status of the parents of
every child, along with the birth State of every child for
whom they provide certain federally funded benefts.” Ibid.
Unrebutted record evidence bears this out and shows that
the Citizenship Order would irreparably harm the States,
even if it does not apply to children born within their bound-
aries. The Court does not contend otherwise. That should
be the end of the matter.
Nevertheless, the majority suggests that the District
Courts might consider, after this Court hands down its deci-
sion, whether some alternative narrower injunction would
provide the States complete relief. See ante, at 854. What
would such an injunction look like, and would it be feasible?
The Court does not say. The majority does note, but takes
no position on, two narrower injunctions the Government
claims would still give complete relief to the States: an order
prohibiting the Government from enforcing the Citizenship
Order in respondent States, including as to state residents
born elsewhere; or an order directing the Government to
9
In the majority's telling, the Washington District Court “acknowledged
the state respondents' complete-relief argument but primarily granted a
universal injunction” based on its weighing of the equities. See ante, at
853, n. 14. Not so. That court carefully explained why “a geographically
limited injunction would be ineffective, as it would not completely relieve
[the States] of the Order's fnancial burden(s).” 765 F. Supp. 3d 1142,
1153–1154 (2025). A narrower injunction, it explained, would be “un-
workable” and would itself likely impose new “recordkeeping and adminis-
trative burden[s]” on the States. Id., at 1154.

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treat children covered by the Citizenship Order as eligible
for
federally funded welfare benefts when those children re-
side in a respondent State. See ibid. (citing Application for
Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A884, p. 23).
As an initial matter, the Government never raised those
narrower injunctions to the District Courts, meaning it for-
feited them. That is what the First Circuit expressly held,
131 F. 4th, at 43 (“declining to consider” those alternatives
because they were “raised for [the] frst time . . . in support
of stay pending appeal of preliminary injunction”), and the
majority does not dispute the point. It is true that plaintiffs
seeking a preliminary injunction bear the burden of making
“a clear showing that [they are] entitled to such relief.”
Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S.
7, 22 (2008). The States met that burden, however: They
presented what is still uncontroverted evidence that an in-
junction applicable only to children born within their borders
would give them less than complete relief. Accordingly, it
was reasonable for the District Courts to fashion the reme-
dies that they did, for they were “not obligated to undertake
the task of chiseling from the government's across-the-board
[Executive Order] a different policy the government never
identifed, endorsed, or defended.” J. D. v. Azar, 925 F. 3d
1291, 1336 (CADC 2019) (per curiam).
Those proffered alternatives, moreover, are unworkable
on their face. Each would require creating a two-tiered
scheme in which the Government's recognition of some chil-
dren's citizenship status or eligibility for federally funded
benefts would change based on whether a child resides in
one of respondent States at any given moment. That
scheme would have to operate, somehow, without imposing
an administrative burden on respondent States or disrupting
their receipt of federal funds to which they are entitled.
“[T]he regular movement of the American people into and
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
maintain such a scattershot system.” Ante, at 872 (opinion
of
Kavanaugh, J.).
Such a system would also be incompatible with federal law.
Some statutes, like those governing Medicaid and Supple-
mental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefts, re-
quire States to give benefts only to applicants with a Social
Security number and to use those numbers for certain ad-
ministrative purposes. See, e. g., 7 U. S. C. § 2025(e); 42
U. S. C. § 1320b–7(a)(1). States could not comply with those
laws under the Government's alternative injunctions because
children covered by the Citizenship Order in nonparty States
would still be treated as noncitizens at birth. Thus, when
some of those children later move to one of respondent
States, they would lack Social Security numbers. No mat-
ter how it is done, discarding the nationwide status quo of
birthright citizenship would result in chaos.
What is more, the principle of complete relief does not re-
quire courts to award only the absolute narrowest injunction
possible. To conclude otherwise would eviscerate the “dis-
cretion and judgment” that is integral to the crafting of injunc-
tive relief. International Refugee Assistance Project, 582
U. S., at 579. Indeed, equitable relief “[t]raditionally . . . has
been characterized by a practical fexibility in shaping its rem-
edies and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and
private needs.” Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294,
300 (1955) (footnote omitted). That is why the court in the
majority's nuisance hypothetical can “order the defendant to
turn her music down,” or to turn it “off,” even though the latter
is technically more burdensome on the defendant than neces-
sary to give the plaintiff complete relief. Ante, at 851–852.
Accordingly, the District Courts appropriately determined
that the “only one feasible option” that would give complete
relief to the States was a universal injunction. See ante, at
851. Clearly, the majority is asking the lower courts them-

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selves to explain what is patently obvious about the Govern-
ment'
s proposed injunctions and any others that can be
imagined.
Inexplicably, however, the Court declares that, for the as-
sociational and individual respondents, injunctions enjoining
the Government from enforcing the Citizenship Order
against them (and only them) would have suffced. See ante,
at 852–853. In fashioning equitable relief, however, courts
must take into account “ `what is workable.' ” North Caro-
lina v. Covington, 581 U. S. 486, 488 (2017) (per curiam).
Just like the injunction that the majority blesses in the con-
text of its nuisance-suit hypothetical, which will bestow a
peaceful night upon the plaintiff 's neighbors even when the
plaintiff is not herself at home, the preliminary injunction for
the associational and individual respondents refects what is
practicable. As the Maryland District Court found, “ `hun-
dreds or even thousands' ” of the associational respondents'
members, who reside in all 50 States, “ `will give birth to
children in the United States over the coming weeks and
months.' ” 763 F. Supp. 3d, at 746. Theoretically, it might
be possible for a court to fashion an injunction that runs to
each of the thousands of expectant mothers in that group.
But see ante, at 872 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.) (“Often, it is
not especially workable or sustainable or desirable to have a
patchwork scheme . . . in which a major new federal statute
or executive action . . . applies to some people or organiza-
tions in certain States or regions, but not to others”). Yet
anything less than a nationwide injunction creates a risk that
the Government, inadvertently or intentionally, will enforce
the Citizenship Order against some of the plaintiffs' children
before this Court rules defnitively on the Order's lawfulness.
A narrower injunction would necessarily task “[t]hose [re-
sponsible for] determining a baby's citizenship status . . . with
[correctly] confrming [biological] parentage, the citizenship
or immigration status of both [biological] parents, and mem-
bership in specifc organizations.” Opposition to Applica-

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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
tion for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A884, p. 24.
That,
in turn, would “impose an enormous burden on expect-
ing parents, membership organizations, government employ-
ees at all levels, and hospital staff,” increasing the risk of
mistake. Ibid. The risk of noncompliance is also particu-
larly stark here, where the challenged action itself refects
an utter disregard for settled precedent, and given the Gov-
ernment's repeated insistence that it need not provide notice
to individuals before their sudden deportations. See, e. g.,
A. A. R. P. v. Trump, 605 U. S. 91, 93 (2025) (per curiam);
Department of Homeland Security v. D. V. D., 606 U. S.
–––, ––– (2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). The majority
does not identify a narrower alternative that is both practical
and mitigates that risk.
At the very least, there is no reason to think that the Dis-
trict Court abused its discretion in deciding that only a na-
tionwide injunction could protect the plaintiffs' fundamental
rights. See Ashcroft, 542 U. S., at 664 (setting forth the
standard of review). “Crafting a preliminary injunction,”
after all, “is an exercise of discretion and judgment, often
dependent as much on the equities of a given case as the
substance of the legal issues it presents.” International
Refugee Assistance Project, 582 U. S., at 579. Applying def-
erential abuse-of-discretion review, the Fourth Circuit em-
phasized that “[t]he district court . . . carefully explained why
an injunction limited to the parties—including organizations
with hundreds of thousands of members nationwide—would
be unworkable in practice and thus fail to provide complete
relie[f] to the plaintiffs.” 2025 WL 654902, *1. The major-
ity gives no justifcation for deeming the District Court's rea-
soned assessment an abuse of discretion.
D
The equities and public interest weigh decisively against
the Government. For all of the reasons discussed, the Citi-
zenship Order is patently unconstitutional. To allow the
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Government to enforce it against even one newborn child is
an
assault on our constitutional order and antithetical to eq-
uity and public interest. Cf. Salazar v. Buono, 559 U. S. 700,
714–715 (2010) (plurality opinion) (“ `[A] court must never ig-
nore . . . circumstances underlying [equitable relief] lest the
decree be turned into an “instrument of wrong ” ' ”).
Meanwhile, newborns subject to the Citizenship Order will
face the gravest harms imaginable. If the Order does in fact
go into effect without further intervention by the District
Courts, children will lose, at least for the time being, “a most
precious right,” Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S.
144, 159 (1963), and “cherished status” that “carries with it
the privilege of full participation in the affairs of our society,”
Knauer v. United States, 328 U. S. 654, 658 (1946). Affected
children also risk losing the chance to participate in Ameri-
can society altogether, unless their parents have suffcient
resources to fle individual suits or successfully challenge the
Citizenship Order in removal proceedings. Indeed, the
Order risks the “creation of a substantial `shadow popula-
tion' ” for covered children born in the United States who
remain here. Plyler, 457 U. S., at 218. Without Social Se-
curity numbers and other documentation, these children will
be denied critical public services, like SNAP and Medicaid,
and lose the ability to engage fully in civic life by being born
in States that have not fled a lawsuit. Worse yet, the Order
threatens to render American-born children stateless, a sta-
tus “deplored in the international community” for causing
“the total destruction of the individual's status in organized
society.” Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101–102 (1958) (plural-
ity opinion). That threat hangs like a guillotine over this
litigation.
The Order will cause chaos for the families of all affected
children too, as expecting parents scramble to understand
whether the Order will apply to them and what ramifcations
it will have. If allowed to take effect, the Order may even
wrench newborns from the arms of parents lawfully in the
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
United States, for it purports to strip citizenship from the
ch
ildren of parents legally present on a temporary basis.
See 90 Fed. Reg. 8449. Those newborns could face deporta-
tion, even as their parents remain lawfully in the country.
In light of all these consequences, there can be no serious
question over where the equities lie in these cases.
IV
The Court's decision is nothing less than an open invitation
for the Government to bypass the Constitution. The Execu-
tive Branch can now enforce policies that fout settled law
and violate countless individuals' constitutional rights, and
the federal courts will be hamstrung to stop its actions fully.
Until the day that every affected person manages to become
party to a lawsuit and secures for himself injunctive relief,
the Government may act lawlessly indefnitely.
Not even a decision from this Court would necessarily
bind the Government to stop, completely and permanently,
its commission of unquestionably unconstitutional conduct.
The majority interprets the Judiciary Act, which defnes the
equity jurisdiction for all federal courts, this Court included,
as prohibiting the issuance of universal injunctions (unless
necessary for complete relief ). What, besides equity, en-
ables this Court to order the Government to cease com-
pletely the enforcement of illegal policies? The majority
does not say. So even if this Court later rules that the Citi-
zenship Order is unlawful, we may nevertheless lack the
power to enjoin enforcement as to anyone not formally a
party before the Court. In a case where the Government is
acting in open defance of the Constitution, federal law, and
this Court's holdings, it is naive to believe the Government
will treat this Court's opinions on those policies as “de facto”
universal injunctions absent an express order directing total
nonenforcement. Ante, at 873 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.).
Indeed, at oral argument, the Government refused to com-
mit to obeying any court order issued by a Federal Court of
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Appeals holding the Citizenship Order unlawful (except with
respec
t to the plaintiffs in the suit), even within the relevant
Circuit. Tr. of Oral Arg. 61–63. To the extent the Govern-
ment cannot commit to compliance with Court of Appeals
decisions in those Circuits, it offers no principled reason why
it would treat the opinions of this Court any differently na-
tionwide. Thus, by stripping even itself of the ability to
issue universal injunctions, the Court diminishes its role as
“the ultimate decider of the interim [and permanent] legal
status of major new federal statutes and executive actions.”
Ante, at 870 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.).
There is a serious question, moreover, whether this Court
will ever get the chance to rule on the constitutionality of a
policy like the Citizenship Order. Contra, ante, at 873 (opin-
ion of Kavanaugh, J.) (“[T]he losing parties in the courts of
appeals will regularly come to this Court in matters involv-
ing major new federal statutes and executive actions”). In
the ordinary course, parties who prevail in the lower courts
generally cannot seek review from this Court, likely leaving
it up to the Government's discretion whether a petition will
be fled here.
10
These cases prove the point: Every court to
consider the Citizenship Order's merits has found that it is
unconstitutional in preliminary rulings. Because respond-
ents prevailed on the merits and received universal injunc-
tions, they have no reason to fle an appeal. The Govern-
ment has no incentive to fle a petition here either, because
the outcome of such an appeal would be preordained. The
Government recognizes as much, which is why its emergency
10
On rare occasion, this Court has permitted a party who prevailed in
the lower courts nonetheless to obtain this Court's review of a legal ques-
tion. See, e. g., Camreta v. Greene, 563 U. S. 692, 698 (2011) (allowing a
government offcial who prevailed on grounds of qualifed immunity to
challenge an underlying adverse constitutional ruling). Those exceptions
have no relevance here, however, because there is no adverse determina-
tion for respondents to challenge.
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
applications challenged only the scope of the preliminary
i
njunctions.
Even accepting that this Court will get the opportunity to
“ac[t] as the ultimate decider” of patently unlawful policies,
ante, at 870 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.), and that the Execu-
tive Branch will treat this Court's opinions as de facto uni-
versal injunctions,
11
it is still necessary for the lower courts
to have the equitable authority to issue universal injunc-
tions, too. As Justice Kavanaugh notes, it can take, at a
minimum, “weeks” for an application concerning a major new
policy to reach this Court. Ibid. In the interim, the Gov-
ernment may feel free to execute illegal policies against non-
parties and cause immeasurable harm that this Court may
never be able to remedy. Indeed, in these cases, there is a
serious risk the Government will seek to deport newborns
whose parents have not fled suit if all the injunctions are
narrowed on remand. That unconscionable result only un-
derscores why it is necessary, in some cases, for lower courts
to issue universal injunctions.
Fortunately, in the rubble of its assault on equity jurisdic-
tion, the majority leaves untouched one important tool to
provide broad relief to individuals subject to lawless Govern-
ment conduct: Rule 23(b)(2) class actions for injunctive relief.
11
The majority insists that the constitutionality of the Citizenship Order
will come before this Court eventually and that, when it does, the Govern-
ment will obey this Court's resulting opinion with respect to all newborn
children. Ante, at 859–860, n. 18. Why? The majority is sure that the
Government will honor its oral-argument promises to “ `seek cert' ” when
it “ `lose[s] one of ' ” its pending appeals and to “respect both the judgments
and opinions of this Court.” Ibid. (quoting Tr. of Oral Arg. 50). The
majority's certainty that the Government will keep its word is nothing
short of a leap of faith, given that the Government has adopted a plainly
unconstitutional policy in defance of this Court's precedent and then
gamed the system to stymie this Court's consideration of the policy's mer-
its. In any event, the Government's promise is cold comfort to the many
children whose parents do not fle a lawsuit and whose citizenship status
remains in fux pending this Court's review.
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That mechanism may provide some relief, but it is not a per-
fec
t substitute for a universal injunction. First, a named
plaintiff must incur the higher cost of pursuing class relief,
which will involve, at a minimum, overcoming the hurdle of
class certifcation. “ `[D]emonstrating th[e] prerequisites' ”
of numerosity, commonality and typicality and the adequacy
of the named plaintiff to represent the class “ `is diffcult and
time consuming and has been getting harder as a result of
recent court decisions and federal legislation.' ” Chicago v.
Barr, 961 F. 3d 882, 917 (CA7 2020) (quoting A. Frost, In
Defense of Nationwide Injunctions, 93 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1065,
1096 (2018); alterations in original). “ `Courts have height-
ened the evidentiary standard for class certifcation' ” as
wel l, “ `requir i ng hear i ngs and someti mes sig ni ficant
amounts of evidence on the merits of the class before certify-
ing the class.' ” 961 F. 3d, at 917. In recent years, more-
over, “ `courts have started to deny class certifcation if they
think there has been a faw in class defnition,' ” sometimes
“ `without frst allowing the plaintiffs to amend that defni-
tion in response to the court's concerns.' ” Ibid. What is
more, “ `defendants can seek interlocutory review of a court's
decision to certify a class, adding further delay and expense
to the certifcation process.' ” Ibid. Hence why some “ `de-
scrib[e] the class certifcation process as a “drawn-out proce-
dural bog,” which comes with signifcant expense and delay
for the would be class member.' ” Ibid. Indeed, at oral ar-
gument, the Government refused to concede that a class
could be certifed to challenge the Citizenship Order and
promised to invoke Rule 23's barriers to stop it. See Tr. of
Oral Arg. 31–32.
Nevertheless, the parents of children covered by the Citi-
zenship Order would be well advised to fle promptly class-
action suits and to request temporary injunctive relief for
the put ative class pendi ng class cer ti ficati on. See
A. A. R. P., 605 U. S., at 98; Califano, 442 U. S., at 701–703;
see also ante, at 869 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.) (recognizing
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921
Jackson, J., dissenting
that lower courts, in some circumstances, can “award prelim-
i
nary classwide relief that may . . . be statewide, regionwide,
or even nationwide”). For suits challenging policies as bla-
tantly unlawful and harmful as the Citizenship Order, more-
over, lower courts would be wise to act swiftly on such re-
quests for relief and to adjudicate the cases as quickly as
they can so as to enable this Court's prompt review.
***
The rule of law is not a given in this Nation, nor any other.
It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those
brave enough in every branch fght for its survival. Today,
the Court abdicates its vital role in that effort. With the
stroke of a pen, the President has made a “solemn mockery”
of our Constitution. Peters, 5 Cranch, at 136. Rather than
stand frm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity
should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.
Justice Jackson, dissenting.
I agree with every word of Justice Sotomayor's dissent.
I write separately to emphasize a key conceptual point: The
Court's decision to permit the Executive to violate the Con-
stitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an
existential threat to the rule of law.
It is important to recognize that the Executive's bid to
vanquish so-called “universal injunctions” is, at bottom, a re-
quest for this Court's permission to engage in unlawful be-
havior. When the Government says “do not allow the lower
courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for
unconstitutional conduct,” what it is actually saying is that
the Executive wants to continue doing something that a
court has determined violates the Constitution—please allow
this. That is some solicitation. With its ruling today, the
majority largely grants the Government's wish. But, in my
view, if this country is going to persist as a Nation of laws
and not men, the Judiciary has no choice but to deny it.
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Stated simply, what it means to have a system of govern-
ment
that is bounded by law is that everyone is constrained
by the law, no exceptions. And for that to actually happen,
courts must have the power to order everyone (including the
Executive) to follow the law—full stop. To conclude other-
wise is to endorse the creation of a zone of lawlessness within
which the Executive has the prerogative to take or leave the
law as it wishes, and where individuals who would otherwise
be entitled to the law's protection become subject to the
Executive's whims instead.
The majority cannot deny that our Constitution was de-
signed to split the powers of a monarch between the govern-
ing branches to protect the People. Nor is it debatable that
the role of the Judiciary in our constitutional scheme is to
ensure fdelity to law. But these core values are strangely
absent from today's decision. Focusing on inapt compari-
sons to impotent English tribunals, the majority ignores the
Judiciary's foundational duty to uphold the Constitution and
laws of the United States. The majority's ruling thus not
only diverges from frst principles, it is also profoundly dan-
gerous, since it gives the Executive the go-ahead to some-
times wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the
Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate. The very
institution our founding charter charges with the duty to en-
sure universal adherence to the law now requires judges to
shrug and turn their backs to intermittent lawlessness.
With deep disillusionment, I dissent.
I
To hear the major ity tel l it, th is suit raises a mi nd-
numbingly technical query: Are universal injunctions “suff-
ciently `analogous' to the relief issued `by the High Court of
Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Consti-
tution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act' ” to fall
within the equitable authority Congress granted federal
courts in the Judiciary Act of 1789? Ante, at 841–842. But
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Jackson, J., dissenting
that legalese is a smokescreen. It obscures a far more basic
questi
on of enormous legal and practical signifcance: May
a federal court in the United States of America order the
Executive to follow the law?
A
To ask this question is to answer it. In a constitutional
Republic such as ours, a federal court has the power to order
the Executive to follow the law—and it must. It is axio-
matic that the Constitution of the United States and the stat-
utes that the People's representatives have enacted govern
in our system of government. Thus, everyone, from the
President on down, is bound by law. By duty and nature,
federal courts say what the law is (if there is a genuine dis-
pute), and require those who are subject to the law to con-
form their behavior to what the law requires. This is the
essence of the rule of law.
Do not take my word for it. Venerated fgures in our Na-
tion's history have repeatedly emphasized that “[t]he essence
of our free Government is `leave to live by no man's leave,
underneath the law'—to be governed by those impersonal
forces which we call law.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v.
Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 654 (1952) (R. Jackson, J., concurring).
“Our Government is fashioned to fulfll this concept so far
as humanly possible.” Id., at 654–655. Put differently, the
United States of America has “ ` “a government of laws and
not of men.” ' ” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, 23 (1958)
(Frankfurter, J., concurring) (quoting United States v. Mine
Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 307 (1947) (Frankfurter, J., concur-
ring in judgment)); see also, e. g., Mass. Const., pt. 1, Art.
XXX (1780), in 3 Federal and State Constitutions 1893 (F.
Thorpe ed. 1909) (J. Adams); Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch
137, 163 (1803) (Marshall, C. J., for the Court); United States
v. Dickson, 15 Pet. 141, 162 (1841) (Story, J., for the Court).
That familiar adage is more than just mere “ `rhetorical
fourish.' ” Cooper, 358 U. S., at 23. It is “ `the rejection in
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positive terms of rule by fat, whether by the fat of govern-
ment
al or private power.' ” Ibid. Indeed, “constitutional-
ism has one essential quality: it is a legal limitation on gov-
ernment; it is the antithesis of arbitrary rule; its opposite is
despotic government, the government of will instead of law.”
C. McIlwain, Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern 21–22
(rev. ed. 1947); see also id., at 21 (“All constitutional govern-
ment is by defnition limited government”).
Those who birthed our Nation limited the power of gov-
ernment to preserve freedom. As they knew all too well,
“constant experience shows us that every man invested with
power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as
it will go.” Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, in 38 Great
Books of the Western World 69 (T. Nugent transl., R. Hutch-
ins ed. 1952). But the Founders reasoned that the vice of
human ambition could be channeled to prevent the country
from devolving into despotism—ambition could be “made to
counteract ambition.” The Federalist No. 51, p. 322 (C. Ros-
siter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). If there were, say, a Constitu-
tion that divided power across institutions “in such a manner
as that each may be a check on the other,” then it could be
possible to establish Government by and for the People and
thus stave off autocracy. Ibid.; see also Myers v. United
States, 272 U. S. 52, 293 (1926) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (“The
doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Con-
vention of 1787, not to promote effciency but to preclude
the exercise of arbitrary power”). Through such separated
institutions, power checks power. See Montesquieu, The
Spirit of Laws, at 69. Our system of institutional checks
thus exists for a reason: so that “the private interest of every
individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.” The
Federalist No. 51, at 322.
B
The distribution of power between the Judiciary and the
Executive is of particular importance to the operation of a
society governed by law. Made up of “ `free, impartial, and

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925
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independent' ” judges and justices, the Judiciary checks the
pol
itical branches of Government by explaining what the law
is and “securing obedience” with it. Mine Workers, 330
U. S., at 308, 312 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.); see Marbury, 1
Cranch, at 177. The federal courts were thus established
“not only to decide upon the controverted rights of the citi-
zens as against each other, but also upon rights in contro-
versy between them and the government.” United States
v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196, 220 (1882).
Quite unlike a rule-of-kings governing system, in a rule-
of-law regime, nearly “[e]very act of government may be
challenged by an appeal to law.” Cooper, 358 U. S., at 23
(opinion of Frankfurter, J.). In this country, the Executive
does not stand above or outside of the law. Consequently,
when courts are called upon to adjudicate the lawfulness of
the actions of the other branches of Government, the Judi-
ciary plays “an essential part of the democratic process.”
Mine Workers, 330 U. S., at 312. Were it otherwise—were
courts unable or unwilling to command the Government to
follow the law—they would “sanctio[n] a tyranny” that has
no place in a country committed to “well-regulated liberty
and the protection of personal rights.” Lee, 106 U. S., at
221. It is law—and “ `Law alone' ”—that “ `saves a society
from being rent by internecine strife or ruled by mere brute
power however disguised.' ” Cooper, 358 U. S., at 23 (quot-
ing Mine Workers, 330 U. S., at 308).
The power to compel the Executive to follow the law is
particularly vital where the relevant law is the Constitution.
When the Executive transgresses an Act of Congress, there
are mechanisms through which Congress can assert its check
against the Executive unilaterally—such as, for example, as-
serting the power of the purse. See K. Stith, Congress'
Power of the Purse, 97 Yale L. J. 1343, 1360 (1988) (describing
Congress's ability to “regulat[e] executive branch activities
by limitations on appropriations”). But when the Executive
violates the Constitution, the only recourse is the courts.
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Eliminate that check, and our government ceases to be one
of
“limited powers.” Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 457
(1991). After all, a limit that “do[es] not confne the perso[n]
on whom [it is] imposed” is no limit at all. Marbury, 1
Cranch, at 176.
1
II
With that background, we can now turn to this suit and
focus on the ways in which the majority's ruling undermines
our constitutional system. Justice Sotomayor has laid out
the relevant facts, see ante, at 887–891 (dissenting opinion),
and I will not repeat what she has said. It suffces for my
purposes to reiterate that, before these applications arrived
here, three District Courts had concluded that Executive
Order No. 14160—which attempts to alter the Constitution's
express conferral of citizenship on all who are born in this
Nation, Amdt. 14, § 1—likely violates the Constitution.
Those courts each thus enjoined the Executive from enforc-
1
These foundational separation-of-powers principles are, of course, the
doctrinal underpinnings of the observations I make in Parts II and III,
in fra. If my point is “diffcult to pin down,” ante, at 857, that could be
due to the majority's myopic initial framing—it casts today's emergency
applications as being solely about the scope of judicial authority, while
ignoring (or forgetting) the concomitant expansion of executive power that
results when the equitable remedial power of judges is needlessly re-
stricted. Or perhaps the culprit is the majority's threshold decision to
rest its holding solely on the Judiciary Act, ante, at 841, n. 4, thereby
facilitating its convenient sidestepping of the startling constitutional impli-
cations that follow from blanket limitations on the Judiciary's response
to the Executive's lawlessness. Whatever the source of the majority's
confusion, there is no question that its statutory holding restricting the
traditional equitable power of federal courts to craft a suitable remedy for
established (or likely) constitutional violations has signifcant ramifcations
for the separation of powers and for constitutional rights more broadly.
Justice Sotomayor thoroughly explains why restricting judges in this
manner is legally and historically unfounded. My goal is to highlight the
myr iad ways i n wh ich the major ity's newly mi nted no-universa l-
injunctions limitation also subverts core constitutional norms and is funda-
mentally incompatible with the rule of law.
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ing that order anywhere, against anyone. See 763 F. Supp.
3d
723 (Md. 2025), appeal pending, No. 25–1153 (CA4); 765
F. Supp. 3d 1142 (WD Wash. 2025), appeal pending, No. 25–
807 (CA9); Doe v. Trump, 766 F. Supp. 3d 266 (Mass. 2025),
appeal pending, No. 25–1170 (CA1). Three Courts of
Appeals then declined to upset these injunctions during
the pendency of the Government's appeals. See 2025 WL
654902 (CA4, Feb. 28, 2025); 2025 WL 553485 (CA9, Feb. 19,
2025); 131 F. 4th 27 (CA1 2025).
The majority now does what none of the lower courts that
have considered Executive Order No. 14160 would do: It
allows the Executive's constitutionally dubious mandate to
go into effect with respect to anyone who is not already a
plaintiff in one of the existing legal actions. Notably, the
Court has not determined that any of the lower courts were
wrong about their conclusion that the executive order likely
violates the Constitution—the Executive has not asked us to
rule on the lawfulness of Executive Order No. 14160. But
the majority allows the Executive to implement this order
(which lower courts have so far uniformly declared likely un-
constitutional) nonetheless.
Given the critical role of the Judiciary in maintaining the
rule of law, see Part I, supra, it is odd, to say the least, that
the Court would grant the Executive's wish to be freed from
the constraints of law by prohibiting district courts from or-
dering complete compliance with the Constitution. But the
majority goes there. It holds that, even assuming that Ex-
ecutive Order No. 14160 violates the Constitution, federal
courts lack the power to prevent the Executive from continu-
ing to implement that unconstitutional directive.
As I understand the concern, in this clash over the respec-
tive powers of two coordinate branches of Government, the
majority sees a power grab—but not by a presumably law-
less Executive choosing to act in a manner that fouts the
plain text of the Constitution. Instead, to the majority, the
power-hungry actors are . . . (wait for it) . . . the district
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courts. See ante, at 837 (admonishing district courts for
dar
ing to “asser[t] the power” to order the Executive to fol-
low the law universally). In the majority's view, federal
courts only have the power to “afford the plaintiff complete re-
lief ” in the cases brought before them; they can do nothing
more. Ante, at 851. And the majority thinks a so-called uni-
versal injunction—that is, a court order requiring the Execu-
tive to follow the law across the board and not just with respect
to the plaintiff—“grant[s] relief to nonparties.” See ante, at
842–844. Therefore, the majority reasons, issuing such or-
ders exceeds district courts' authority. See ante, at 856.
So many questions arise.
2
The majority's analysis is fully
interrogated, and countered, in Justice Sotomayor's dis-
2
Although I will not spend much space discussing it here, the majority's
primary premise—that universal injunctions “grant relief to nonparties”—
is suspect. When a court issues an injunction (universal or otherwise), it
does so via an order that governs the relationship between the plaintiff
and the defendant. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 65(d). That order provides the
plaintiff with relief: If the plaintiff believes that the defendant has vio-
lated the court's order, she may come back to court, injunction in hand,
and demand enforcement or compensation through the mechanism of civil
contempt. See Longshoremen v. Philadelphia Marine Trade Assn., 389
U. S. 64, 75 (1967) (recognizing that an “injunction” is “an equitable decree
compelling obedience under the threat of contempt”). As the majority
recognizes, nonparties may beneft from an injunction a court issues in a
plaintiff's case. See ante, at 852. But that does not mean those inciden-
tal benefciaries have received relief—“the injunction's protection” (i. e.,
the ability to seek contempt) “extends only to the suing plaintiff.” Ibid.
An injunction prohibiting the Executive from acting unlawfully operates
precisely the same way. Such an injunction may beneft nonparties as a
practical matter—but only the named plaintiffs have the right to return
to the issuing court and seek contempt, if the Executive fails to comply.
See Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 444–445 (1911)
(“Proceedings for civil contempt are between the original parties”); Buck-
eye Coal & R. Co. v. Hocking Valley R. Co., 269 U. S. 42, 48–49 (1925)
(holding that a nonparty injured by the defendant's noncompliance with
an injunction could not enforce the injunction); cf. Blue Chip Stamps v.
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sent. My objective is to expose the core conceptual fallacy
under
lying the majority's reasoning, which, to me, also tends
to demonstrate why, and how, today's ruling threatens the
rule of law.
The pillar upon which today's ruling rests is the majority's
contention that the remedial power of the federal courts is
limited to granting “complete relief ” to the parties. Ante,
at 851. And the majority's sole basis for that proposition is
the practice of the High Court of Chancery in England.
Ante, at 842–843. But this cramped characterization of the
Judiciary's function is highly questionable when it comes to
suits against the Executive. That is, even if the majority is
correct that courts in England at the time of the founding
were so limited—and I have my doubts, see ante, at 895–
897 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting)—why would courts in our
constitutional system be limited in the same way?
The Founders of the United States of America squarely
rejected a governing system in which the King ruled all, and
all others, including the courts, were his subordinates. In
enforceable directly or in collateral proceedings by those who are not par-
ties to it even though they were intended to be benefted by it”). So, the
majority's concern that universal injunctions inappropriately grant “re-
lief ” to nonparties is incorrect. Nonparties may beneft from an injunc-
tion, but only the plaintiff gets relief.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 71 is not to the contrary. Contra, ante,
at 851, n. 11. At most, that rule and the cases the majority cites suggest
that, in certain narrow circumstances, a nonparty for whose beneft an
injunction was issued may be able to go to the issuing court and seek
contempt. But “the precise contours of Rule 71 . . . remain unclear,”
Beckett v. Air Line Pilots Assn., 995 F. 2d 280, 287–288 (CADC 1993), and
courts have largely recognized that, to the extent nonparty enforcement
of an injunction is available, the nonparty must stand in a close relation-
ship to the plaintiff or have been specifcally named in the injunction. See
United States v. American Soc. of Composers, Authors, and Publishers,
341 F. 2d 1003, 1008 (CA2 1965) (nonparty could not enforce injunction
where it was “not . . . named in the judgment” even though it was “indi-
rectly or economically benefted by the decree”).

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Jackson, J., dissenting
our Constitution-centered system, the People are the rulers
and
we have the rule of law. So, it makes little sense to look
to the relationship between English courts and the King for
guidance on the power of our Nation's Judiciary vis-à-vis its
Executive. See The Federalist No. 69, at 416 (A. Hamilton)
(explaining how the President differs from the King, includ-
ing because “[t]he person of the King of Great Britain is sa-
cred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to
which he is amenable”). Indeed, it is precisely because the
law constrains the Government in our system that the Judi-
ciary's assignment is so broad, per the Constitution. Fed-
eral courts entertain suits against the Government claiming
constitutional violations. Thus, the function of the courts—
both in theory and in practice—necessarily includes announc-
ing what the law requires in such suits for the beneft of all
who are protected by the Constitution, not merely doling out
relief to injured private parties.
Put differently, the majority views the Judiciary's power
through an aperture that is much too small, leading it to
think that the only function of our courts is to provide “com-
plete relief ” to private parties. Sure, federal courts do that,
and they do it well. But they also diligently maintain the
rule of law itself. When it comes to upholding the law, fed-
eral courts ensure that all comers—i. e., everyone to whom
the law applies and over whom the court has personal juris-
diction (including and perhaps especially the Executive)—
know what the law is and, most important, follow it.
3
3
No one is saying that the reasoning of a district court's opinion, on its
own, “has the legal force of a judgment,” ante, at 857; of course it does
not. The real issue today's applications raise is whether district-court opin-
ions are entitled to respect while litigation over the lawfulness of the defend-
ant's conduct is ongoing. As I have explained, the majority's key move is to
start by assuming that the remedial power of federal courts is quite narrow
(i. e., it is only appropriately exercised to grant “complete relief ” to the
parties). Ante, at 841–847, 851. The majority forgets (or ignores) that
federal courts also make pronouncements of law and issue orders compel-
ling compliance if violations are identifed. Then, having zeroed in on
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III
Sti
ll, upon reading the Court's opinion, the majority's foun-
dational mistake in mischaracterizing the true scope and na-
ture of a federal court's power might seem only marginally
impactful. Indeed, one might wonder: Why all the fuss?
After all, the majority recognizes that district courts can still
issue universal injunctions in some circumstances. See
ante, at 851–853. It even acknowledges that the lower
courts may reimpose the same universal injunctions at issue
in these cases, if the courts fnd on remand that doing so is
necessary to provide complete relief to the named plaintiffs.
See ante, at 854. From the standpoint of outcomes, that's
all welcome news. But, as I explain below, from the per-
spective of constitutional theory and actual practice, disas-
ter looms.
What I mean by this is that our rights-based legal system
can only function properly if the Executive, and everyone
else, is always bound by law. Today's decision is a seismic
shock to that foundational norm. Allowing the Executive to
violate the law at its prerogative with respect to anyone who
solely the courts' plaintiff-specifc-remedies function, the majority unsur-
prisingly insists that a district court cannot respond to the Executive's
decision to violate the law universally by issuing an order compelling uni-
versal cessation of the Executive's unlawful behavior. This kind of broad
injunction is merely one tool in a judge's kit of remedial options—one that
is directly responsive to the court's duty to uphold the law and the Execu-
tive's decision to consciously violate it—and it is no more or less binding
than any of the district court's other determinations. So, rather than dis-
dainfully securing permission to disregard the district court's opinion and
continue engaging in unlawful conduct vis-à-vis anyone who is not the
plaintiff, an enjoined Executive that believes the district court was wrong
to conclude that its behavior is unlawful has a rule-of-law-affrming re-
sponse at the ready: It can seek expedited review of the merits on appeal.
District courts themselves also have the fexibility to stay their injunc-
tions pending appeal, if that is requested and the circumstances demand
it. But rather than permit lower courts to adapt their remedies to the
particulars of a given case, the majority today ties judges' hands, requiring
them to acquiesce to executive lawlessness in every situation.
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has not yet sued carves out a huge exception—a gash in the
basic
tenets of our founding charter that could turn out to
be a mortal wound. What is more, to me, requiring courts
themselves to provide the dagger (by giving their imprima-
tur to the Executive Branch's intermittent lawlessness)
makes a mockery of the Judiciary's solemn duty to safeguard
the rule of law.
A
Do remember: The Executive has not asked this Court to
determine whether Executive Order No. 14160 complies with
the Constitution. Rather, it has come to us seeking the
right to continue enforcing that order regardless—i. e., even
though six courts have now said the order is likely unconsti-
tutional. What the Executive wants, in effect, is for this
Court to bless and facilitate its desire to operate in two dif-
ferent zones moving forward: one in which it is required to
follow the law (because a particular plaintiff has secured a
personal injunction prohibiting its unlawful conduct), and an-
other in which it can choose to violate the law with respect
to certain people (those who have yet to sue).
In the frst zone, law reigns. For the named plaintiffs in
the suits before us, for example, the lower courts' determina-
tion that Executive Order No. 14160 is likely unconstitutional
and cannot be implemented has teeth. Per the courts' or-
ders, the Executive is prohibited from denying citizenship to
the offspring of the named plaintiffs. See ante, at 861 (leav-
ing the injunctions in place to the extent “necessary to pro-
vide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue”).
Within this zone, the courts' rule of decision—that Executive
Order No. 14160 is likely unconstitutional—applies.
But with its ruling today, the majority endorses the cre-
ation of a second zone—one in which that rule of decision
has no effect. In this zone, which is populated by those who
lack the wherewithal or ability to go to court, all bets are off.
There is no court-issued mandate requiring the Executive to
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honor birthright citizenship in compliance with the Constitu-
ti
on, so the people within this zone are left to the preroga-
tives of the Executive as to whether their constitutional
rights will be respected. It does not matter what six fed-
eral courts have said about Executive Order No. 14160; those
courts are powerless to make the Executive stop enforcing
that order altogether. In effect, then, that powerlessness
creates a void that renders the Constitution's constraints ir-
relevant to the Executive's actions. Of course, the Execu-
tive might choose to follow the law in this zone as well—but
that is left to its discretion. And the Solicitor General has
now confrmed that, in the absence of a personal injunction
secured by a particular plaintiff, this Executive's view is that
compliance with lower court rulings on matters of constitu-
tional signifcance is optional.
4
I am not the frst to observe that a legal system that oper-
ates on two different tracks (one of which grants to the Exec-
utive the prerogative to disregard the law) is anathema to
the rule of law.
5
Thus, the law-free zone that results from
4
The Solicitor General said that quiet part out loud by baldly asserting
that the Executive reserves the right to defy Circuit precedent. Tr. of
Oral Arg. 33–34, 60–61. Although he further suggested that the adminis-
tration would abide by precedent from this Court in future similar cases,
id., at 35, 63, even that seems to be a matter of prerogative, as there is no
inherent limit to the limited-scope-of-authority logic that underlies today's
holding, see ante, at 917–918 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). The Execu-
tive's less-than-sterling record of compliance with Supreme Court rulings
to date casts further doubt on this compliance claim; as Justice Soto-
mayor has explained, the Executive Order at issue here seems to squarely
violate at least one—and perhaps fve—of our bedrock precedents. See
ante, at 884–886 (dissenting opinion).
5
See E. Fraenkel, The Dual State, pp. xiii, 3, 71 (1941) (describing the
way in which the creation of a “Prerogative State” where the Executive
“exercises unlimited arbitrariness . . . unchecked by any legal guarantees”
is incompatible with the rule of law); see also J. Locke, Second Treatise
of Civil Government 13 (J. Gough ed. 1948) (“[F]reedom of men under
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this Court's near elimination of universal injunctions is not
an
unfamiliar archetype. Also eerily echoing history's hor-
rors is the fact that today's prerogative zone is unlikely to
impact the public in a randomly distributed manner. Those
in the good graces of the Executive have nothing to fear; the
new prerogative that the Executive has to act unlawfully
will not be exercised with respect to them. Those who ac-
cede to the Executive's demands, too, will be in the clear.
The wealthy and the well connected will have little diffculty
securing legal representation, going to court, and obtaining
injunctive relief in their own name if the Executive violates
their rights.
Consequently, the zone of lawlessness the majority has
now authorized will disproportionately impact the poor, the
uneducated, and the unpopular—i. e., those who may not
have the wherewithal to lawyer up, and will all too often fnd
themselves beholden to the Executive's whims. This is yet
another crack in the foundation of the rule of law, which re-
quires “equality and justice in its application.” Papachris-
tou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156, 171 (1972). In the end,
though, everyone will be affected, because it is law's even-
handed application—“to minorities as well as majorities, to
the poor as well as the rich”—that “holds society together.”
Ibid.
The majority “skips over” these consequences. Ante, at
859. No one denies that the power of federal courts is lim-
ited—both by the Constitution and by Congress. But the
majority seems to forget (or ignores) that the Constitution
that society . . . and not to be subject to the . . . arbitrary will of another
man”); The Federalist No. 26, p. 169 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton)
(contrasting the monarch's “prerogative” with the emergence of “liberty”);
Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 295 (1926) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
(“[P]rotection of the individual . . . from the arbitrary or capricious exer-
cise of power [is] an essential of free government”); Youngstown Sheet &
Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 641 (1952) (R. Jackson, J., concurring)
(observing that our Constitution—which embodies the rule of law—does
not grant to the Executive the “prerogative exercised by George III”).
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and Congress also limit the power of the Executive. In ad-
diti
on, it is indisputable that the Executive's power to lever-
age physical force in a manner that directly threatens to de-
prive people of life, liberty, or property creates uniquely
harmful risks when unconstrained by law. But the majority
today roots its holding in a purported statutory limitation,
not a constitutional one. Ante, at 841, n. 4. And, as I have
explained, our Constitution gives federal courts the author-
ity to order the Executive to stop acting unlawfully. See
Part I, supra. To the extent Congress has attempted to
strip federal courts of that power via the Judiciary Act (and,
to be clear, I do not think it has, for the reasons Justice
Sotomayor discusses, see ante, at 900–908), it is powerless
to do so.
The bottom line is this: If courts do not have the authority
to require the Executive to adhere to law universally, a dual-
track system develops in which courts are ousted as guard-
ians in some situations and compliance with law sometimes
becomes a matter of executive prerogative. But “[t]here can
be no free society without law administered through an inde-
pendent judiciary.” Mine Workers, 330 U. S., at 312 (opinion
of Frankfurter, J.). “If one man”—even a very important
man, and even a democratically elected man—“can be al-
lowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can.
That means frst chaos, then tyranny.” Ibid.
B
This leads me to another potentially destructive aspect of
today's decision—the Court's dismissive treatment of the sol-
emn duties and responsibilities of the lower courts. Sworn
judicial offcers must now put on blinders and take a see-no-
evil stance with respect to harmful executive conduct, even
though those same offcials have already announced that such
conduct is likely unconstitutional. Yes, certain named plain-
tiffs have brought particular lawsuits seeking protection of
their legal rights. But their claim is that Executive Order
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No. 14160 violates the Constitution. If the court agrees
w
ith them, why on Earth must it permit that unconstitu-
tional government action to take effect at all?
I have already explained why the majority's answer—be-
cause the court is powerless to do anything but give “com-
plete relief ” to those parties—is wrong in terms of the actual
scope of federal courts' authority. See Part I, supra. I
now observe that this response also erroneously suggests
that a court does something wrongful when it imposes a uni-
versal injunction in a single plaintiff 's lawsuit—akin to giv-
ing a windfall to those who do not deserve the law's protec-
tion because they have not sued. Ante, at 844, 847–850.
This way of conceptualizing universal injunctions mistakes
that remedy for the unearned spoils of particular adversarial
engagements, rather than a necessary tool employed to de-
fend the Constitution by reinforcing pre-existing rights.
Here is what I mean. Our Constitution indisputably con-
fers individual rights that operate as unequivocal protections
against government action.
6
Thus, a constrained Execu-
tive—i. e., one who is bound by the Constitution not to vio-
late people's rights—is a public beneft, guaranteed to all
from the start, without regard to the nature or existence
of any particular enforcement action.
7
Properly understood,
then, when the Executive violates those pre-existing rights
in a nonparticularized manner, a universal injunction merely
6
See, e. g., Amdt. 1 (prohibiting the government from preventing the
“free exercise” of religion or “abridging the freedom of speech”); Amdt. 2
(prohibiting the government from infringing on the right “to keep and
bear Arms”); Amdt. 4 (prohibiting the government from conducting “un-
reasonable searches and seizures”); Amdt. 5 (prohibiting the government
from depriving persons of “life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law”).
7
In this way of framing the issue, nonparties are more than mere “inci-
dental” benefciaries of universal injunctions that require the Executive to
respect constitutional rights. See n. 2, supra. Rather, the very concept
of constitutional rights makes the People intended benefciaries of the con-
straints that the Constitution imposes on executive action.
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Jackson, J., dissenting
restores what the People were always owed; that remedy
does
not improperly distribute an unearned beneft to those
who did not have the temerity to secure it for themselves by
fling a lawsuit.
Or consider it the other way: When a court is prevented
from enjoining the Executive universally after the Executive
establishes a universal practice of stripping people's constitu-
tional rights, anyone who is entitled to the Constitution's
protection but will instead be subjected to the Executive's
whims is improperly divested of their inheritance. The
Constitution is fipped on its head, for its promises are essen-
tially nullifed.
8
So, rather than having a governing system
characterized by protected rights, the default becomes an
Executive that can do whatever it wants to whomever it
wants, unless and until each affected individual affrmatively
invokes the law's protection.
A concrete example helps to illustrate why this turnabout
undermines the rule of law. Imagine an Executive who is-
sues a blanket order that is blatantly unconstitutional—de-
manding, say, that any and all of its political foes be sum-
marily and indefnitely incarcerated in a prison outside the
jurisdiction of the United States, without any hearing or
chance to be heard in court. Shortly after learning of this
edict, one such political rival rushes into court with his law-
yer, claims the Executive's order violates the Constitution,
and secures an injunction that prohibits the Executive from
enforcing that unconstitutional mandate. The upshot of to-
day's decision is that, despite that rival's success in persuad-
8
Again, the law binds the Executive from the outset in our constitu-
tional scheme, for the beneft of all. See Part I, supra. Thus, a lawsuit
is merely the vehicle that invokes the Judiciary's power to check the Exec-
utive by enforcing the law. The topsy-turvy scheme the majority creates
today gets those well-established norms exactly backward: The law disap-
pears as an initial constraint on the Executive, and apparently only exists
if a particular plaintiff fles a particular lawsuit in a particular court, claim-
ing his (particular) entitlement.
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UMP v. CASA, INC.
Jackson, J., dissenting
ing a judge of the unconstitutional nature of the Executive's
proclamati
on, the court's ruling and injunction can only re-
quire the Executive to shelve any no-process incarceration
plan that targets that particular individual (the named
plaintiff ); the Executive can keep right on rounding up its
other foes, despite the court's clear and unequivocal pro-
nouncement that the executive order is unlawful.
The majority today says that, unless and until the other
political rivals seek and secure their own personal injunc-
tions, the Executive can carry on acting unconstitutionally
with respect to each of them, as if the Constitution's due
process requirement does not exist. For those who get to
court in time, their right not to be indefnitely imprisoned
without due process will be protected. But if they are un-
able to sue or get to the courthouse too late, the majority
says, oh well, there is nothing to be done, despite the fact
that their detention without due process is plainly prohibited
by law.
A Martian arriving here from another planet would see
these circumstances and surely wonder: “what good is the
Constitution, then?” What, really, is this system for pro-
tecting people's rights if it amounts to this—placing the onus
on the victims to invoke the law's protection, and rendering
the very institution that has the singular function of ensur-
ing compliance with the Constitution powerless to prevent
the Government from violating it? “Those things Ameri-
cans call constitutional rights seem hardly worth the paper
they are written on!”
These observations are indictments, especially for a Na-
tion that prides itself on being fair and free. But, after
today, that is where we are. What the majority has done is
allow the Executive to nullify the statutory and constitu-
tional rights of the uncounseled, the underresourced, and the
unwary, by prohibiting the lower courts from ordering the
Executive to follow the law across the board. Moreover, of-
fcers who have sworn an oath to uphold the law are now
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939
Jackson, J., dissenting
required to allow the Executive to blatantly violate it. Fed-
era
l judges pledge to support and defend the Constitution of
the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic.
5 U. S. C. § 3331. They do not agree to permit unconstitu-
tional behavior by the Executive (or anyone else). But the
majority forgets (or ignores) this duty, eagerly imposing a
limit on the power of courts that, in essence, prevents judges
from doing what their oaths require.
9
I view the demise of the notion that a federal judge can
order the Executive to adhere to the Constitution—full
stop—as a sad day for America. The majority's unpersua-
9
The majority highlights a number of policy concerns that some say
warrant restriction of the universal-injunction remedy. Ante, at 855–856.
In my view, those downsides pale in comparison to the consequences of
forcing federal courts to acquiesce to executive lawlessness. Moreover,
and in any event, the various practical problems critics have identifed are
largely overblown. For example, while many accuse universal injunctions
of preventing percolation, the facts of this very suit demonstrate other-
wise: Three different District Courts each considered the merits of Execu-
tive Order No. 14160, and appeals are now pending in three Courts of
Appeals. See supra, at 926–927. Other prudential concerns are better
addressed in more targeted ways, such as by changing venue rules to
prevent forum or judge shopping, or by encouraging lower courts to expe-
dite their review, thereby teeing the merits up for this Court as quickly
as possible.
That is not to say that universal injunctions can or should be issued in
every case; a court must always ft its remedy to the particular case before
it, and those particulars may caution against issuing universal relief in
certain instances. See ante, at 899–900 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). But
the Cour t today for the first ti me ever adopts a blanket author ity-
diminishing rule: It declares that courts do not have the power to exercise
their equitable discretion to order the Executive to completely cease act-
ing pursuant to an unlawful directive (unless doing so is necessary to pro-
vide complete relief to a given plaintiff ). And, again, this very suit illus-
trates why that bright line rule goes much too far. As Justice
Sotomayor emphasizes, multiple courts have recognized that Executive
Order No. 14160 is “patently unconstitutional under settled law,” and those
courts thus issued the relief necessary to “protect newborns from the ex-
ceptional, irreparable harm associated with losing a foundational constitu-
tional right and its immediate benefts.” Ibid.

940 TR
UMP v. CASA, INC.
Jackson, J., dissenting
sive effort to justify this result makes it sadder still. It is
the
responsibility of each and every jurist to hold the line.
But the Court now requires judges to look the other way
after fnding that the Executive is violating the law, shame-
fully permitting unlawful conduct to continue unabated.
Today's ruling thus surreptitiously stymies the Judiciary's
core duty to protect and defend constitutional rights. It
does this indirectly, by preventing lower courts from telling
the Executive that it has to stop engaging in conduct that
violates the Constitution. Instead, now, a court's power to
prevent constitutional violations comes with an asterisk—a
court can make the Executive cease its unconstitutional con-
duct *but only with respect to the particular plaintiffs named
in the lawsuit before them, leaving the Executive free to
violate the constitutional rights of anyone and everyone else.
***
Make no mistake: Today's ruling allows the Executive to
deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our
Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a
lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their
rights protected. This perverse burden shifting cannot co-
exist with the rule of law. In essence, the Court has now
shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where
executive action is challenged, and has gifted the Executive
with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law. As
a result, the Judiciary—the one institution that is solely re-
sponsible for ensuring our Republic endures as a Nation of
laws—has put both our legal system, and our system of gov-
ernment, in grave jeopardy.
“The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a
day.” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 594 (opinion of Frankfurter,
J.). But “[i]t does come,” “from the generative force of un-
checked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the
most disinterested assertion of authority.” Ibid. By need-
lessly granting the Government's emergency application to
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941
Jackson, J., dissenting
prohibit universal injunctions, the Court has cleared a path
for
the Executive to choose law-free action at this perilous
moment for our Constitution—right when the Judiciary
should be hunkering down to do all it can to preserve the
law's constraints. I have no doubt that, if judges must allow
the Executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, as
the Court concludes today, executive lawlessness will four-
ish, and from there, it is not diffcult to predict how this all
ends. Eventually, executive power will become completely
uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will
be no more.
Perhaps the degradation of our rule-of-law regime would
happen anyway. But this Court's complicity in the creation
of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the
law (as they interpret it) will surely hasten the downfall of
our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise.
At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up
in minutiae of the Government's self-serving, fnger-pointing
arguments that it misses the plot. The majority forgets (or
ignores) that “[w]ith all its defects, delays and inconven-
iences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving
free government except that the Executive be under the law,
and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.”
Id., at 655 (opinion of R. Jackson, J.). Tragically, the major-
ity also shuns this prescient warning: Even if “[s]uch institu-
tions may be destined to pass away,” “it is the duty of the
Court to be last, not frst, to give them up.” Ibid.
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Reporter’s Note
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant
punctuation. The following additional edits were made:
p. 846, line 10: “lay” is changed to “lie”
p. 859, line 4: “legal and” is inserted before “practical”
p. 879, lines 14 and 15: “the States passed in 1866 and Congress ratifed in
1868” is changed to “Congress passed in 1866 and the States ratifed
in 1868”
p. 886, line 17: “effect in” is inserted after “in”
p. 892, line 13 from bottom: “injury” is changed to “harm”
p. 895, line 17 from bottom: “before was” is changed to “was before”
p. 915, line 25: the frst “the” is deleted