In a decision that will profoundly reshape the federal judiciary, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. CASA de Maryland (2025) that district court judges can no longer issue nationwide injunctions, orders that stop a federal policy from being enforced across the entire country.
The 6–3 ruling, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, dramatically curtails a tool civil rights groups have long used to halt harmful or unconstitutional policies before they could be widely implemented. While the Court left the door open for relief via class-action lawsuits, this alternative is slower, more procedural, and inaccessible for many.
This decision doesn’t just change the legal process, it strikes at the heart of democratic accountability, giving an already emboldened executive branch fewer checks and more room to act without consequence.
The case originated in early 2025, when the current administration issued an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship, arguing that only children born to at least one citizen or lawful permanent resident should automatically be citizens. Lower courts issued nationwide injunctions blocking the order. That decision was consolidated with Trump v. CASA when the administration asked the Supreme Court to limit injunctions to the plaintiffs themselves. The Court’s ruling centered on how nationwide policies are blocked, not on whether birthright citizenship is valid.
The current administration’s order triggered a series of legal challenges in federal courts across the country, including in Washington, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Opponents of the executive order argued that it violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to overturn one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious decisions: the 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford. In that case, the Court, by a 7-2 vote, decided that a Black person whose ancestors had been brought to the U.S. and enslaved was not a U.S. citizen and therefore had no right to seek protection in federal court.
In 1898, the Supreme Court sided with Wong Kim Ark, who was born in California to Chinese immigrant parents. By a 6-2 vote, the Court dismissed the government’s claim that Wong was not a citizen. Justice Horace Gray wrote that the 14th Amendment, though originally intended to secure citizenship for Black Americans, “affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Barrett argued that constitutional and historical principles restrict district courts to offering relief only to the parties before them, not to the entire nation. She emphasized the equity tradition of resolving disputes, not dictating nationwide policy. While class-action procedures remain available, the ruling effectively removes a crucial, fast-acting tool to prevent constitutional harm nationwide.
The Court traced U.S. birthright citizenship to a centuries-old English common-law doctrine of jus soli “right of the soil”. Cases like Calvin’s Case (1608) and Blackstone’s Commentaries (1765) established that anyone born under the sovereign’s dominion was a subject, regardless of their parents’ status. This tradition carried through American law, culminating in landmark cases like Wong Kim Ark (1898). The Court emphasized: “The Court relied on this historical context to underscore that birthright citizenship isn’t merely a modern policy choice, it’s a constitutional principle deeply rooted in tradition. This historical foundation supports the 14th Amendment’s guarantee, strengthening the argument that administrative attempts to revoke it are fundamentally at odds with centuries of law.”
In dissent, Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, warned that eliminating nationwide injunctions strips lower courts of essential power to halt government harm. She warned that the decision creates fragmented justice, forcing lawsuits in individual jurisdictions and delaying protections, meanwhile, serious harm could spread unchecked.
Without swift judicial checks, executive actions especially those targeting civil rights, immigration, or environmental laws, can be enforced de facto, with little recourse for affected individuals.
Nationwide injunctions have long served as a legal safety valve. They stopped policies like the controversial travel ban, DACA rollbacks, and pandemic-era restrictions. Removing this tool leaves America vulnerable to harm that must become widespread before legal protections can catch up, limiting democratic accountability. Vulnerable communities may bear the brunt, while the Supreme Court, hearing only a few dozen cases annually, becomes the only significant protection.
The stakes are enormous. Each year, about 150,000 U.S.-born children face the threat of being denied citizenship under the administration’s policy, according to Reuters. That may seem small in a 330 million‑person country, but for these families, the consequences of statelessness, lost benefits, and lack of legal identity are profound and real. Trump v. CASA is not just a legal case, it’s a referendum on accountability. By stripping lower courts of their ability to act quickly and broadly, the Supreme Court has weakened a key democratic safeguard. In the resulting power vacuum, executive authority expands and constitutional rights risk becoming contingent rather than guaranteed.