CRS Report – Trump v. CASA, Inc. and Nationwide Injunctions During the Second Trump Administration, R48600, 07/16/2025. “On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court decided Trump v. CASA, Inc., a trio of consolidated cases in which the Court limited the ability of federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions—court orders against the government that prevent the government from implementing a challenged law, regulation, or other policy against all relevant persons and entities, whether or not such persons or entities are parties participating in the litigation. No. 24A884, 2025 WL 1773631 (U.S. June 27, 2025). The substantive legal issue in these cases concerns the validity of Executive Order No. 14,160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which provides that the protections afforded to individuals under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, known as birthright citizenship, shall not apply to certain individuals born in the United States to specified categories of alien parents. The Supreme Court litigation in CASA focused on the procedural question of whether the trial courts erred in entering nationwide injunctions against enforcement of the executive order. In the years leading up to the CASA decision, litigation over actions of the federal executive branch prompted significant discussion of the authority of federal courts to halt or prevent the enforcement of executive branch policies, with a particular focus on nationwide injunctions. Lawmakers, executive branch officials, judges, and commentators debated whether and when it is appropriate for a court to enjoin a government action in its entirety, with some arguing that nationwide injunctions are rarely or never appropriate, while others defended the practice. While no statute, procedural rule, or Supreme Court decision expressly authorized federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions or limited their ability to do so, courts at all levels of the federal judiciary had issued nationwide injunctions. Before the decision in CASA, several sources provided counts of nationwide injunctions. In a May 2019 address, then-Attorney General William Barr stated that federal courts “issued only 27 nationwide injunctions in all of the 20th century.” By contrast, as of February 2020, the Department of Justice had identified 12 nationwide injunctions issued during the presidency of George W. Bush, 19 issued during Barack Obama’s presidency, and 55 such injunctions issued during the first Trump Administration up to that point. In April 2024, the Harvard Law Review published an article with counts of nationwide injunctions through 2023. With respect to our most recent presidential Administrations, the article identified six nationwide injunctions issued under the George W. Bush Administration, 12 under the Obama Administration, 64 under the first Trump Administration, and 14 from the first three years of the Biden Administration. CRS reports from March and May 2025 identified 86 nationwide injunction cases from the first Trump Administration, 28 from the Biden Administration, and 25 from the first hundred days of the second Trump Administration. Against that background, the Supreme Court decided CASA, holding that the Judiciary Act of 1789 (Ch. 20, 1 Stat. 73) does not authorize nationwide injunctions that reach more broadly than needed to provide complete relief to the parties to a case. While the CASA majority and concurrences expressed the intent to limit nationwide injunctions, the decision also left open several potential avenues for litigants to seek universal relief. It therefore remains to be seen how the decision will affect litigation challenging federal laws and policies. In the meantime, Congress might consider the available legislative options in the wake of CASA…”