The Trump administration is celebrating following Friday's ruling from the High Court that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions. The outcome in Trump v. CASA was a victory for the Republican president, who has complained about lower-level judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda.
J. Christian Adams is a former Justice Department Attorney who is now president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
"The Supreme Court today took a major tool away from the progressive Left that they used to transform the country, and that is nationwide injunctions," he explains. "The court said that one court sitting in Massachusetts or Oregon or Hawaii can't decide national issues for the entire country, but only for the litigants in front of them – not for the whole country."
However, Friday's decision left unclear the fate of President Donald Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship, which he ordered just hours after being inaugurated for his second term. According to Adams, there may be a good reason for that.
"Some [Supreme Court] justices might have realized the votes weren't there to get what most people would want. So, they were therefore happy to confine this opinion to nationwide injunctions and never take it up again, because there's a good chance the court is never going to rule the way that a lot of people would want," says Adams.
"So, maybe it's a victory that they didn't take it up [and chose to] save it for another day, another court. Who knows who's [going to be] on the court in five years? You might get a better situation. I don't know, but don't lament too much the fact they didn't take it up."
Two other cases were consolidated with Trump v. CASA: Trump v. Washington and Trump v. New Jersey – both of which challenged an executive order on birthright citizenship signed by President Trump on January 20, 2025.
