Nationwide injunctions are central to Trump’s feud with judges. Here’s what to know

In President Donald Trump’s escalating battle with the judiciary, he and his Republican allies have zeroed in on a similar message.

No single judge, they argue, should be able to use an injunction to block the powers of the country’s elected chief executive.

“That’s a presidential job. That’s not for a local judge to be making that determination,” Trump said on Fox News earlier this week as he railed against a judge who issued a limited order to stop deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members to other countries after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, peppered with questions after the administration did not turn the planes around, on Wednesday preemptively offered her own rebuke of judges who’ve recently ordered injunctions taking effect nationwide.

“The judges in this country are acting erroneously,” she said. “We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable.”

The White House argues that’s especially the case when it comes to immigration matters, foreign affairs, national security and the president exercising his constitutional powers as commander in chief.

Judges have, so far, temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to ban transgender people from serving in the military, freeze federal funding and bring an end to birthright citizenship.

Supporters of nationwide injunctions say they serve as an essential check to potentially unlawful conduct and prevent widespread harm. Critics say they give too much authority to individual judges and incentivize plaintiffs to try to evade random assignment and file in jurisdictions with judges who may be sympathetic to their point of view.

In general, legal experts told ABC News an injunction is meant to preserve the status quo while judges consider the merits of the case. (Judges also issue temporary restraining orders — with similar impact — as short-term emergency measures to prevent irreparable harm until a hearing can be held.)

“Often the nationwide injunction, or universal injunction, is put in place right at the start of a litigation,” said Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

“All of these can be appealed, and they are,” Frost said. “It’s appealed to a three-judge court and then the Supreme Court after that. So, when people say one district court is controlling the law for the nation, well maybe for a few weeks. The system allows for appeals, and the Trump administration has appealed.”

Chief Justice John Roberts said the same in a rare statement after Trump attacked the federal judge in the deportation flight case as a “Radical Left Lunatic” and called for him to be impeached.

In fact, Trump was handed a win when an appeals court last week lifted an injunction on his executive orders seeking to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government.

Nationwide injunctions are also not new, though scholars agree they’ve been used far more in recent decades.

“We saw them with Obama, we saw them with the first Trump administration, and saw them with Biden,” Frost said. “And now we’re seeing them even more with President Trump but they go in lockstep with the sweeping executive orders that seek to change and upend vast swaths of our legal structure.”

According to a study by the Harvard Law Review, President Barack Obama faced 12 injunctions, the Trump administration faced 64 and President Joe Biden 14 injunctions.

Both Democrats and Republicans have either urged the judiciary to rein in injunctions or celebrated their outcomes, depending on whether they align with their political goals.

In 2023, when a federal judge in Missouri issued an injunction limiting contact between the Biden administration and social media sites, then-candidate Trump called it a “historic ruling” and the judge “brilliant.” The U.S. Supreme Court eventually sided with the Biden administration on the issue.

Now, the Trump administration is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to curb injunctions after three different federal judges temporarily blocked the president’s birthright citizenship order, saying it likely violated the 14th Amendment.

“At a minimum, the Court should stay the injunctions to the extent they prohibit agencies from developing and issuing public guidance regarding the implementation of the Order. Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in an application to the high court last week.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said he understands the “frustration” that can stem from nationwide injunctions but ultimately “judges are there to make sure that the government doesn’t violate the Constitution.”

“Trump is really taking a sledgehammer to everything government related,” he said. “These norms have been around for decades, so you have to allow some time for the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, to weigh in and say whether this is appropriate or not.”

The White House has said Trump will comply with the courts, but his intensifying rebukes of judges and rulings have raised the question: What happens if he doesn’t?

“That would completely undermine the integrity of our system,” Rahmani said.