A nationwide injunction is a court order from a single federal judge that blocks the government from enforcing a law or policy against anyone in the country, not just the people who filed the lawsuit. For most of American history these orders were rare. That changed sharply over the last two decades, and then changed again in June 2025, when the Supreme Court held in Trump v. CASA, Inc. that universal injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.”1Supreme Court of the United States. Trump v. CASA, Inc. Going forward, a district court can generally protect only the plaintiffs actually before it.
What Makes an Injunction Nationwide
In an ordinary lawsuit, a court’s order protects the people who brought the case. Sue a federal agency over a regulation that hurts your business, and you might win an order telling the agency to stop enforcing that regulation against you. A nationwide injunction, sometimes called a universal injunction, goes much further. It tells the agency to stop enforcing the regulation against everyone, everywhere. One judge in one courthouse effectively rewrites the rules for the entire country while the case proceeds.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 says an injunction “binds only” the parties, their employees and agents, and anyone working with them who has notice of the order.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 65 – Injunctions and Restraining Orders That text sits uneasily with the practice of orders reaching millions of non-parties. Defenders of the practice argued that because the federal government is a single entity, ordering it to stop a policy inherently affects everyone. Critics pointed to Rule 65’s language and said courts were reaching beyond their authority.
Where the Authority Came From
Courts issuing nationwide relief leaned on two separate legal theories, and the difference between them matters a great deal now.
Equitable Power
Article III of the Constitution gives federal courts the power to decide cases and controversies.3Constitution Annotated. ArtIII.S2.C1.1 Overview of Cases or Controversies Inside that authority sits the historic power of equity, meaning the ability to craft remedies beyond money damages when fairness demands it. Judges who issued nationwide injunctions argued that fully remedying an illegal government action sometimes required stopping the action everywhere, not just for one plaintiff.
Vacatur Under the APA
The second theory rests on a different tool. The Administrative Procedure Act directs courts to “hold unlawful and set aside” agency actions that are arbitrary, exceed the agency’s authority, or violate the Constitution.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 706 – Scope of Review When a court “sets aside” a regulation, the argument goes, the regulation itself is nullified and has no legal force against anyone. This is called universal vacatur.
The distinction matters. An injunction is an order directed at people, telling government officials to stop doing something. Vacatur operates on the rule itself, draining it of legal effect. The legal thresholds also differ: an injunction requires a showing of irreparable harm and a favorable balance of interests, while vacatur can be obtained by proving the agency action was unlawful.5Congressional Research Service. Set Aside and Vacatur Under the Administrative Procedure Act
What a Plaintiff Has to Show
Most nationwide injunctions in the news are preliminary injunctions, issued early in a case to hold the status quo while litigation continues. The Supreme Court set the standard in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council. A court must find all four:
- The plaintiff is likely to win on the legal merits, not just raise a plausible argument.
- The plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm that money cannot fix if the court does nothing, and that harm is likely rather than merely possible.
- The hardship to the plaintiff outweighs the burden on the government from pausing its policy.
- The injunction serves the broader public interest.
When the government is the defendant, the last two factors tend to merge, because the government’s interest and the public interest are closely linked.6Justia. Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 US 7 (2008) A permanent injunction after trial uses a similar test, except the plaintiff must have actually won on the merits rather than shown a likelihood of winning.
Rule 65 also requires that the order describe the restrained conduct specifically and state the court’s reasons. A preliminary injunction cannot issue without notice to the opposing party, so the government gets a chance to argue against it first.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 65 – Injunctions and Restraining Orders There is no set expiration; a preliminary injunction stays in force until the court dissolves it, the parties settle, or a final judgment replaces it.
How These Orders Became Common
Nationwide injunctions used to be unusual. According to Congressional Research Service data, federal courts issued only about 27 nationwide injunctions during the entire twentieth century. The numbers then climbed by administration: roughly 6 under George W. Bush, 12 under Obama, and 86 under the first Trump administration. The count dropped to 28 under Biden but still outpaced every pre-Trump total.7Congressional Research Service. Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration
Litigants on both sides learned that a single sympathetic judge could freeze a president’s agenda before it started. That produced forum shopping. Federal districts are divided into divisions, and some divisions have only one judge, so filing there guarantees the case goes to that judge. Plaintiffs challenging Republican administrations tended to file in certain California and Hawaii districts; those challenging Democratic administrations often filed in single-judge divisions in Texas.
The 2025 Supreme Court Limit
The change came in June 2025. The federal government asked the Supreme Court to partially stay three nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts. Rather than treating the requests as routine emergency matters, the Court consolidated the cases, held oral argument, and issued a full signed opinion.8Congressional Research Service. The Interim Docket or Shadow Docket – Non-Merits Matters at the Supreme Court
The majority in Trump v. CASA held that universal injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” Tracing federal equity jurisdiction to the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Court reasoned that the statute authorized only remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at the founding, and courts of that era did not issue orders protecting non-parties. The Court granted partial stays, limiting the lower-court injunctions to relief necessary to provide “complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue,” and directed the lower courts to narrow their orders.1Supreme Court of the United States. Trump v. CASA, Inc. Justice Thomas had foreshadowed the reasoning seven years earlier in a concurrence in Trump v. Hawaii, where he called universal injunctions “legally and historically dubious.”9Justia. Trump v. Hawaii
The practical effect is significant. A district court can still bar the government from enforcing a challenged policy against the plaintiffs in the case, but it cannot issue a blanket order shielding everyone in the country unless Congress explicitly authorizes that scope of relief. High-profile challenges to federal policy will continue, but broad impact now has to run through class certification, additional plaintiffs, or other procedural routes.
What Broad Relief Still Looks Like
The 2025 ruling narrowed universal injunctions without eliminating every path to sweeping relief.
Party-specific injunctions remain fully available. A state, business, or organization that meets the Winter factors can still get an order stopping enforcement against it. When the plaintiff is a large state or a national organization, the ground covered by a party-specific injunction can still be substantial.
Universal vacatur under the APA is the bigger open question. When a court “sets aside” a rule under 5 U.S.C. ยง 706, the rule arguably has no legal force against anyone, because the rule itself has been nullified rather than the government being enjoined.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 706 – Scope of Review The CASA opinion focused on injunctive relief rather than vacatur, so whether APA vacatur survives as a route to universal relief is a question lower courts are working through now.
Congress can also expand what courts can do. The CASA majority rested its holding on the absence of a “clear statement” from Congress authorizing courts to protect non-parties, which leaves the door open to legislation that supplies one.
How the Government Fights an Injunction
When an injunction issues against the government, the first step is usually a request to the same judge to pause the order pending appeal. If the district court refuses, the government goes to the relevant circuit court of appeals, which has jurisdiction over interlocutory orders involving injunctions and does not require a final judgment first.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 US Code 1292 – Interlocutory Decisions The standard for granting a stay, drawn from Nken v. Holder, weighs the government’s likelihood of winning on appeal, irreparable harm without a stay, injury to the other side, and the public interest.11Justia. Nken v. Holder
If the circuit court denies a stay, the government can apply directly to the Supreme Court. These emergency applications are decided without full briefing or oral argument, on compressed timelines, and often without the detailed reasoning that accompanies merits decisions.8Congressional Research Service. The Interim Docket or Shadow Docket – Non-Merits Matters at the Supreme Court The Court can leave the injunction in place, freeze it, or narrow its scope. Those interim orders shape federal policy on the ground for months or years while the case grinds through the lower courts, until, as happened in CASA, the Supreme Court takes the case for full review and settles the question.