Judges across the country have intervened to single-handedly block some of President Trump’s most aggressive policies using nationwide injunctions, sweeping rulings that order the federal government to change its behavior across the country.
Mr. Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship, which triggered three judges to issue nationwide injunctions, will be argued before the Supreme Court on Thursday. The court could use the case to set new limits on the power of federal judges to issue nationwide rulings.
But the impact of nationwide injunctions on Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda extends far beyond the birthright citizenship debate. As of late March, judges had issued 17 nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Here are some of the most consequential:
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A White House effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, which allowed them to legally work and remain in the United States, was blocked by Judge Edward Milton Chen of the Northern District of California on March 31. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined to stay Judge Chen’s ruling, the government asked the Supreme Court to intervene. It has not yet done so. That means Judge Chen’s nationwide injunction remains in effect, though the Homeland Security Department says it still has “every intention” of moving forward with the initial plan “as soon as it obtains relief from the court order.”
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Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the District of Washington ordered the administration not to cut off billions of dollars in federal funding to the states. The Trump administration had attempted to freeze the spending under a memo issued by the Office of Budget and Management that has now been rescinded. Judge AliKhan said the funding could not be cut by that memo or any other broad directive. A similar injunction by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island was limited to the 22 states who sued. The government has appealed both rulings.
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In late April, three district court judges in New Hampshire, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., blocked an effort by the Trump administration to cut off funding for public schools with diversity and equity initiatives. Their orders constrain the Education Department across the country, not just in the judges’ respective districts. The government has not appealed those rulings.
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