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The Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether federal judges can block Trump administration policy across the country.
May 15, 2025Updated 7:29 a.m. ET
It has been a major impediment to President Trump’s agenda — the ability of a single federal judge in a single district to block a policy across the country.
On issue after issue, the White House has been stopped by judges from carrying out Mr. Trump’s initiatives while they are litigated in court, including his ability to withhold funds from schools with diversity programs, to relocate transgender women in federal prisons and to remove deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court will take up one such case, with potentially major implications for the power of the judicial branch.
The dispute stems from an executive order signed by Mr. Trump on the first day of his second term that ended the practice of granting citizenship to all children born in the United States. The policy was blocked almost immediately by federal judges who ruled that it was unconstitutional.
The debate over whether such freezes are legal has simmered for years, as district court judges have issued orders blocking the actions of presidents from both parties. But Mr. Trump has expressed particular outrage about them since he returned to office. Some of the justices have also been critical of nationwide injunctions.
A decision that limits nationwide injunctions could dramatically reshape how federal courts handle challenges to Mr. Trump’s policies, curbing the power of federal judges to swiftly block policies and boosting executive power. Groups opposing Mr. Trump’s actions would most likely have to bring many individual claims, or pursue other legal pathways, such as class action lawsuits.
