Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Congressional research reportMar 20, 2025
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First
Trump Administration and the Biden
Administration
March 20, 2025
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
R48467
SUMMARY
Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump
Administration and the Biden Administration
In recent years, courts, stakeholders, legal commentators, and lawmakers have engaged in
significant legal and policy debate related to nationwide injunctions. The term nationwide
injunction is not a legal term of art and is not defined in any federal statute or majority decision
of the Supreme Court. However, that term is used fairly consistently in lower court decisions and
legal commentary. In those sources, a nationwide injunction is generally defined as an injunction
against the government that prevents the government from implementing a challenged law,
regulation, or other policy, in whole or in part, against all relevant persons and entities, whether
or not such persons or entities are parties participating in the litigation.
R48467
March 20, 2025
Joanna R. Lampe
Legislative Attorney
Laura Deal
Law Librarian
Commentators broadly agree that nationwide injunctions as currently understood did not exist in the pre-Founding English
courts of equity, that no nationwide injunctions issued in the early years of the American Republic, and that such injunctions
have become more common in the past two decades. Several sources provide 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 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) 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 against the first Trump Administration. The February 2020 DOJ numbers remained widely cited for years
because there was limited public data on the issuance of nationwide injunctions. In April 2024, the Harvard Law Review
published an article with counts of nationwide injunctions through 2023. With respect to the four most recent presidential
Administrations, the article identified 6 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.
This CRS report identifies and analyzes nationwide injunctions issued under the first Trump Administration and the Biden
Administration. For several reasons, it is not possible to provide a single definitive count of nationwide injunctions. Most
significantly, nationwide injunction is not a legal term with a precise definition, and so counts may vary based on the
particular definition used. In addition, there are practical challenges in searching for all nationwide injunction cases as well as
methodological choices about how to count the injunctions that fit any given definition.
This report explains CRS’s methodology for identifying nationwide injunction cases and includes tables listing the cases
identified using that methodology. The report also analyzes the cases identified, surveying the primary subject matter at issue
in each case, the geographic distribution of courts that issued nationwide injunctions, the procedural posture in nationwide
injunction cases (that is, whether the injunctions at issue were temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions, or
permanent injunctions), and how nationwide injunctions have fared on appeal. The report concludes by discussing selected
considerations for Congress related to nationwide injunctions. Specifically, it discusses changes in the number of nationwide
injunctions issued over time, proposals that would regulate nationwide injunction cases by subject matter, the relationship
between forum shopping and nationwide injunctions, proposed substantive and procedural reforms related to nationwide
injunctions, and the role of nationwide injunctions under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Congressional Research Service
Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Contents
Background on Nationwide Injunctions .......................................................................................... 2
Identifying Nationwide Injunctions: Methodology ......................................................................... 5
Defining Nationwide Injunction ................................................................................................ 5
Searching for Nationwide Injunctions....................................................................................... 8
Counting Nationwide Injunctions ............................................................................................. 9
Analysis of Nationwide Injunctions .............................................................................................. 10
Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases ..................................................................... 10
Geographic Distribution of Nationwide Injunction Cases ...................................................... 13
Procedural Posture in Nationwide Injunction Cases ............................................................... 17
Nationwide Injunction Cases on Appeal ................................................................................. 20
Considerations for Congress.......................................................................................................... 24
Number of Nationwide Injunctions ......................................................................................... 24
Regulating Nationwide Injunction Cases by Subject Matter .................................................. 25
Nationwide Injunctions and Forum Shopping ........................................................................ 27
Substantive and Procedural Limits on Nationwide Injunctions .............................................. 29
Nationwide Injunctions and APA Litigation............................................................................ 31
Figures
Figure 1. Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases During the First Trump
Administration and the Biden Administration............................................................................ 12
Figure 2. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunctions
During the First Trump Administration ...................................................................................... 14
Figure 3. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunction
During the Biden Administration ............................................................................................... 16
Tables
Table 1. Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases During the
First Trump Administration........................................................................................................ 10
Table 2. Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases During the Biden Administration ......... 11
Table 3. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunctions
During the First Trump Administration ...................................................................................... 13
Table 4. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunctions
During the Biden Administration ............................................................................................... 15
Table 5. Procedural Posture of Nationwide Injunctions During the
First Trump Administration........................................................................................................ 18
Table 6. Procedural Posture of Nationwide Injunctions During the Biden Administration .......... 18
Table 7. Nationwide Injunction Cases on Appeal During the First Trump Administration .......... 22
Table 8. Nationwide Injunction Cases on Appeal During the Biden Administration .................... 22
Table A-1. Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration .................................. 33
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Table A-2. Nationwide Injunctions Under the Biden Administration ........................................... 45
Appendixes
Appendix. Tables of Nationwide Injunctions ................................................................................ 33
Contacts
Author Information........................................................................................................................ 48
Congressional Research Service
Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
n recent years, courts, stakeholders, legal commentators, and lawmakers have engaged in
significant legal and policy debate related to nationwide injunctions.1 The term nationwide
injunction is not a legal term of art and is not defined in any federal statute or majority
decision of the Supreme Court.2 However, that term and related terms3 are used fairly consistently
in lower court decisions and legal commentary. In those sources, a nationwide injunction is
generally defined as an injunction against the government that prevents the government from
implementing a challenged law, regulation, or other policy, in whole or in part, against all
relevant persons and entities, whether or not such persons or entities are parties participating in
the litigation.4
I
Commentators broadly agree that nationwide injunctions as currently understood did not exist in
the pre-Founding English courts of equity, that no nationwide injunctions were issued in the early
years of the American Republic, and that such injunctions have become more common in the past
two decades.5 Several sources provide 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.”6 By contrast, as of February 2020, the Department of
Justice (DOJ) 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 against the
Trump Administration.7 In April 2024, the Harvard Law Review published an article with counts
of nationwide injunctions through 2023.8 With respect to the four most recent presidential
Administrations, the article identified 6 nationwide injunctions issued under the George W. Bush
1 For additional discussion of the legal and policy debate around nationwide injunctions, see CRS Report R46902,
Nationwide Injunctions: Law, History, and Proposals for Reform, by Joanna R. Lampe (2021).
2 But cf., e.g., Labrador v. Poe, 144 S. Ct. 921, 921–22 (2024) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (“[T]he district court entered a
universal injunction.... That is, the court prohibited the defendants from enforcing ‘any provision’ of the law under any
circumstances during the life of the parties’ litigation.”); Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667, 713 n.1 (2018) (Thomas, J.,
concurring) (“‘Nationwide injunctions’ is perhaps the more common term. But I use the term ‘universal injunctions’ in
this opinion because it is more precise. These injunctions are distinctive because they prohibit the Government from
enforcing a policy with respect to anyone, including nonparties—not because they have wide geographic breadth. An
injunction that was properly limited to the plaintiffs in the case would not be invalid simply because it governed the
defendant’s conduct nationwide.”).
3 Nationwide injunctions are also sometimes called national injunctions, universal injunctions, non-party injunctions,
non-particularized injunctions, or even cosmic injunctions. See Mila Sohoni, The Lost History of the “Universal”
Injunction, 133 HARV. L. REV. 920, 922 (2020); Rule by District Judge: The Challenges of Universal Injunctions:
Hearing Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 116th Cong. (2020) (statement of Jesse Panuccio, partner at Boies,
Schiller, Flexner LLP and Public Service Fellow with The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative
State at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University); Howard M. Wasserman, Concepts, Not
Nomenclature: Universal Injunctions, Declaratory Judgments, Opinions, and Precedent, 91 U. COLO. L. REV. 999,
1007 (2020).
4 E.g., Amanda Frost, In Defense of Nationwide Injunctions, 93 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1065, 1071 (2018) (defining
“nationwide injunction” to refer to “an injunction at any stage of the litigation that bars the defendant from taking
action against individuals who are not parties to the lawsuit in a case that is not brought as a class action”); Chicago v.
Barr, 961 F.3d 882, 912 (7th Cir. 2020) (defining “nationwide, or universal, injunctions” as “injunctive relief that
extends beyond the parties before the court to include third parties”); Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (DHS) v. New York, 140
S. Ct. 599, 600 (2020) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (defining the term to mean “a court ... ordering the government to take
(or not take) some action with respect to those who are strangers to the suit”).
5 See, e.g., Samuel L. Bray, Multiple Chancellors: Reforming the National Injunction, 131 HARV. L. REV. 417, 425–27
(2017); Sohoni, supra note 3, at 924–25; Frost, supra note 4, at 1071.
6 William P. Barr, Attorney General, Remarks to the American Law Institute on Nationwide Injunctions (May 21,
2019).
7 Jeffrey A. Rosen, Deputy Attorney General, Address at the Administrative Conference of the United States Forum on
Nationwide Injunctions and Federal Regulatory Programs (Feb. 12, 2020).
8 District Court Reform: Nationwide Injunctions, 137 HARV. L. REV. 1701 (2024).
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Administration, 12 under the Obama Administration, 64 under the first Trump Administration,
and 14 from the first three years of the Biden Administration.9
This CRS report provides background on nationwide injunctions10 and identifies and analyzes
nationwide injunctions issued under the first Trump Administration and the Biden
Administration.11 For several reasons, it is not possible to provide a single definitive count of
nationwide injunctions. Most significantly, nationwide injunction is not a legal term with a
precise definition, and so counts may vary based on the particular definition used. In addition,
there are practical challenges in searching for all nationwide injunction cases as well as
methodological choices about how to count the injunctions that fit any given definition. However,
this report explains CRS’s methodology for identifying nationwide injunctions12 and includes
tables listing the cases identified using that methodology.13 The report also analyzes the cases
identified, surveying the primary subject matter at issue in each case,14 the geographic distribution
of courts that issued nationwide injunctions,15 the procedural posture in nationwide injunction
cases,16 and how nationwide injunctions have fared on appeal.17 The report concludes by
discussing selected considerations for Congress related to nationwide injunctions. Specifically, it
discusses changes in the number of nationwide injunctions issued over time,18 proposals that
would regulate nationwide injunction cases by subject matter,19 the relationship between forum
shopping and nationwide injunctions,20 proposed substantive and procedural reforms related to
nationwide injunctions,21 and the role of nationwide injunctions under the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA).22
Background on Nationwide Injunctions
An injunction is a form of equitable relief23 by which a court either requires an entity to take a
certain action or forbids an entity from taking a certain action.24 A party that fails to comply with
an injunction may be held in contempt and may face sanctions including fines or imprisonment.25
9 Id. at 1705.
10 See infra “Background on Nationwide Injunctions.”
11 Nationwide injunctions issued under the second Trump Administration are outside the scope of this report.
12 See infra “Identifying Nationwide Injunctions.”
13 See infra Table A-1, Table A-2.
14 See infra “Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases.”
15 See infra “Geographic Distribution of Nationwide Injunction Cases.”
16 See infra “Procedural Posture in Nationwide Injunction Cases.”
17 See infra “Nationwide Injunction Cases on Appeal.”
18 See infra “Number of Nationwide Injunctions.”
19 See infra “Regulating Nationwide Injunction Cases by Subject Matter.”
20 See infra “Nationwide Injunctions and Forum Shopping.” Black’s Law Dictionary defines forum shopping as “[t]he
practice of choosing the most favorable jurisdiction or court in which a claim might be heard.” Forum-shopping,
BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (12th ed. 2024).
21 See infra “Substantive and Procedural Limits on Nationwide Injunctions.”
22 See infra “Nationwide Injunctions and APA Litigation.”
23 Equitable relief is essentially a court-ordered remedy providing relief other than money damages. Equitable Remedy,
BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (“A remedy, usu. a nonmonetary one such as an injunction or specific performance,
obtained when available legal remedies, usu. monetary damages, cannot adequately redress the injury.”).
24 Injunction, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (“A court order commanding or preventing an action.”).
25 In cases involving injunctions against federal agency actions, contempt sanctions might include fines against the
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As noted, a nationwide injunction is generally defined as an injunction against the government
that prevents the government from implementing a challenged law, regulation, or other policy
against all persons and entities, whether or not such persons or entities are parties participating in
the litigation.26 While the use of the word nationwide might suggest that the geographic reach of a
court order is what defines a nationwide injunction, the defining feature of a nationwide
injunction is not its geographic scope but rather the entities to which it applies.27
Commentators disagree on the historical roots of nationwide injunctions and debate numerous
legal issues surrounding modern judicial practice related to these injunctions.28 Defenders of
nationwide injunctions argue that the orders prevent widespread harm, reduce the burdens of
litigation by eliminating the need for every person affected by a challenged policy to bring suit,
and promote consistency and the rule of law by uniformly halting allegedly illegal government
actions.29 Some argue that nationwide injunctions are particularly appropriate in certain
circumstances, including immigration litigation, environmental and civil rights cases, and
challenges to agency actions under the APA.30
Critics counter that nationwide injunctions undermine established litigation procedures by
allowing challengers to circumvent the requirements for bringing a class action or by triggering
fast-tracked litigation in which federal courts must evaluate a challenged policy based on a
limited factual and legal record.31 Some contend that nationwide injunctions raise constitutional
agency or agency officials or imprisonment of agency officials responsible for noncompliance. See CRS Legal Sidebar
LSB11271, Enforcement of Court Orders Against the Executive Branch, by Joanna R. Lampe (2025). One
commentator asserts that, in practice, contempt findings in cases against the federal government “are practically devoid
of sanctions.” Nicholas Parillo, The Endgame of Administrative Law and the Judicial Contempt Power, 131 HARV. L.
REV. 685, 697 (2018).
26 See sources cited supra note 4.
27 See, e.g., Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667, 713 n.1 (2018) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“These injunctions are distinctive
because they prohibit the Government from enforcing a policy with respect to anyone, including nonparties—not
because they have wide geographic breadth. An injunction that was properly limited to the plaintiffs in the case would
not be invalid simply because it governed the defendant’s conduct nationwide.”). Cf. Innovation L. Lab v. Wolf, 951
F.3d 1073, 1094 (9th Cir. 2020) (“[I]t is something of a misnomer to call the district court’s order in this case a
‘nationwide injunction.’ The [challenged policy] operates only at our southern border and directs the actions of
government officials only in the four States along that border.... In practical effect, the district court’s injunction, while
setting aside the [policy] in its entirety, does not operate nationwide.”), vacated as moot, Mayorkas v. Innovation L.
Lab, 141 S. Ct. 2842 (2021).
28 For additional discussion of the legal and policy debate over nationwide injunctions, see CRS Report R46902,
Nationwide Injunctions: Law, History, and Proposals for Reform, by Joanna R. Lampe (2021).
29 See, e.g., Suzette Malveaux, Class Actions, Civil Rights, and the National Injunction, 131 HARV. L. REV. F. 56, 61
(2017); Rule by District Judge, supra note 3 (statement of Prof. Mila Sohoni); Doug Rendleman, Preserving the
Nationwide National Government Injunction to Stop Illegal Executive Branch Activity, 91 U. COLO. L. REV. 887, 947
(2020); Frost, supra note 4, at 1109.
30 E.g., Washington v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151, 1159–60 (9th Cir. 2017); Texas v. United States, 787 F.3d 733, 768 (5th
Cir. 2015). Frost, supra note 4, at 1094–97; Wyoming v. Dep’t of Agric., No. 07-CV-017-B, 2009 WL 10670655, at *2
(D. Wyo. June 15, 2009) (holding, in case challenging a rule limiting road construction in roadless areas in national
forests, “Limiting the scope of the injunction to Wyoming ... would be illogical. The Rule was enacted and enforced on
a nationwide basis. It was not tailored to address the forests of each state as separate entities. It would make little sense,
then, to tailor the remedy by limiting the injunction to the State of Wyoming. If the Rule is illegal, as this Court has
found it to be, then it is illegal nationwide, just as it was enforced nationwide.”). See also Michael T. Morley, De Facto
Class Actions? Plaintiff- and Defendant-Oriented Injunctions in Voting Rights, Election Law, and Other Constitutional
Cases, 39 HARV. J. L. & PUB. POL’Y 487, 491 n.15 (2016); Sohoni, supra note 3, at 1123; Christopher J. Walker, Quick
Reaction to Bray’s Argument that the APA Does Not Support Nationwide Injunctions, YALE J. REG. (May 8, 2018),
https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/quick-reaction-to-brays-argument-that-the-apa-does-not-support-nationwide-injunctions/.
31 See, e.g., Bray, supra note 3, at 461–62; Frost, supra note 4, at 1108; DHS v. New York, 140 S. Ct. 599, 600 (2020)
(Gorsuch, J., concurring) (“Rather than spending their time methodically developing arguments and evidence in cases
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questions because they award relief to people who are not parties to the litigation and who may
lack standing to seek relief in federal court.32 Others argue that nationwide injunctions may
prevent the government from effectively implementing its policies or that they can create legal
uncertainty as implementation of challenged government programs may stop and start as a case
moves through each level of the federal courts.33 In addition, some commentators assert that
nationwide injunctions contribute to the politicization of the courts and erode judicial
legitimacy.34
The debate over nationwide injunctions does not split neatly along partisan lines.35 High-profile
policies of presidential Administrations from both major political parties have been delayed or
permanently halted by nationwide injunctions.36 Moreover, the question of whether a nationwide
injunction should issue in any given case is distinct from questions including whether the
challenged government action is legally permissible or advisable as a policy matter.37
Supreme Court decisions lay out general tests for when courts should grant injunctive relief and
impose some guidance on the proper scope of such relief.38 Currently, however, no statute or
Supreme Court majority decision lays out a specific test for when a nationwide injunction should
issue. In the absence of binding legal authority, courts facing decisions about the scope of
injunctive relief have drawn upon the foregoing policy arguments and the general legal standards
that govern requests for injunctive relief, weighing the applicable factors on a case-by-case
basis.39 Applying those principles, federal courts at all levels have issued nationwide
injunctions.40
limited to the parties at hand, both sides have been forced to rush from one preliminary injunction hearing to another,
leaping from one emergency stay application to the next, each with potentially nationwide stakes, and all based on
expedited briefing and little opportunity for the adversarial testing of evidence.”). Cf. Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 23
n.1 (1995) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (“We have in many instances recognized that when frontier legal problems are
presented, periods of ‘percolation’ in, and diverse opinions from, state and federal appellate courts may yield a better
informed and more enduring final pronouncement by this Court.”).
32 See, e.g., Morley, supra note 30, at 524. See also Ronald A. Cass, Nationwide Injunctions’ Governance Problems:
Forum Shopping, Politicizing Courts, and Eroding Constitutional Structure, 27 GEO. MASON L. REV 29, 36 (2019)
(“The redressability requirement plays an important role in assuring that litigation resolves narrowly focused
controversies, rather than simply eliciting judges’ views on general policy disputes”); Jonathan Remy Nash, State
Standing for Nationwide Injunctions Against the Federal Government, 94 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1985, 2008 (2019);
Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. at 2425, 2427 (Thomas, J. concurring); New York, 140 S. Ct. at 600 (Gorsuch, J., concurring).
33 Beth A. Williams, Discussion on Nationwide Injunctions: Introductory Remarks, 24 TEX. REV. L. & POL. 315, 317
(2020); Rule by District Judge, supra note 3 (statement of Prof. Nicholas Bagley).
34 See, e.g., Cass, supra note 32, at 53.
35 See, e.g., Rule by District Judge, supra note 3, at 2 (statement of Prof. Nicholas Bagley).
36 See, e.g., Washington v. Trump, No. C17-0141JLR, 2017 WL 462040 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 3, 2017) (enjoining
enforcement of Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States, Exec. Order No. 13,769, 82
Fed. Reg. 8,977 (Jan. 27, 2017)); Texas v. United States, 515 F. Supp. 3d 627 (S.D. Tex. 2021) (barring enforcement of
a Biden Administration executive order imposing a 100-day pause on deportations).
37 See, e.g., Bray, supra note 5, at 423.
38 E.g., Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008); Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009);
Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 702 (1979).
39 See “Nationwide Injunctions in the Federal Courts,” in CRS Report R46902, Nationwide Injunctions: Law, History,
and Proposals for Reform, by Joanna R. Lampe (2021).
40 See, e.g., Sohoni, supra note 3, at 924–28.
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Identifying Nationwide Injunctions: Methodology
The purpose of this CRS report is to identify recent nationwide injunction cases and provide
analysis of those cases and related considerations for Congress. However, it is not possible to
produce a single definitive count of nationwide injunctions for several reasons. Specifically, there
is some ambiguity to the term nationwide injunction. In addition, there are practical challenges in
searching for nationwide injunction cases, and there are questions about how to count the
injunctions that fit any given definition.
Defining Nationwide Injunction
Nationwide injunction is not a legal term of art. As noted, courts and commentators generally use
the term to refer to an injunction against the government that prevents the government from
implementing a challenged law, regulation, or other policy, in whole or in part, against all
relevant persons and entities, including non-parties to the litigation.41 However, that definition is
not universally accepted. For instance, some sources refer to court orders that bind private parties
as nationwide injunctions.42 Even among those that limit discussion of nationwide injunctions to
injunctions against the government, some use the term to refer only to injunctions that bind the
federal government, while others discuss nationwide or, more often, universal injunctions against
state laws or policies.43 Moreover, courts occasionally issue injunctions that combine with
previously entered injunctions from other courts to block a policy in its entirety44 or enjoin
policies nationwide except within selected jurisdictions where other courts are considering
challenges to the same policy.45 In those cases, enforcement of a policy may be completely
enjoined, although no single court order accomplishes that result.
Courts and commentators also debate whether injunctions in class actions should count as
nationwide injunctions.46 Both class actions and nationwide injunctions may allow plaintiffs to
41 See sources cited supra note 4.
42 See, e.g., Apple Can No Longer Force Developers to Use In-app Purchasing, Judge Rules, REUTERS (Sept. 10,
2021), https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/apple/apple-app-store-decision-judge-rules-epic-fortnite-rcna1969 (“The judge
issued a nationwide injunction blocking Apple ‘anti-steering provisions’ — rules that limit app developers from
pointing users outside of Apple’s ecosystem.”); Tamara Chuang, Two Judges Block Kroger-Albertsons Merger, as
Colorado Waits for Decision in its Own Antitrust Case, COLO. SUN (Dec. 20, 2024) (quoting a spokesperson for the
Colorado State Attorney General’s office describing a court order against a merger of private companies as “a
nationwide preliminary injunction”).
43 E.g., Sohoni, supra note 3, at 926 (citing W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)); Wasserman,
supra note 3, at 1005 (“An injunction prohibiting enforcement of a state law should be as nationwide as an injunction
prohibiting enforcement of federal law—it protects the plaintiff against enforcement of the constitutionally defective
state law everywhere she is or might go.”). See also, e.g., Tenn. Conf. of the NAACP v. Lee, 105 F.4th 888, 906 (6th
Cir. 2024) (noting, in a challenge to a state policy, “the court granted a universal injunction that bars enforcement of
the Documentation Policy against everyone—including applicants that the [plaintiff] NAACP has no plans to assist”).
44 See, e.g., Louisiana v. Becerra, 571 F. Supp. 3d 516, 543–44 (W.D. La. 2021) (“[T]he scope of this injunction will be
nationwide, except for the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Wyoming,
North Dakota, South Dakota, since these ten states are already under a preliminary injunction order dated November
29, 2021, out of the Eastern District of Missouri.”), vacated, No. 21-30734, 2022 WL 2116002 (5th Cir. June 13,
2022).
45 See, e.g., Fraser v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, 689 F. Supp. 3d 203, 218 (E.D. Va. 2023)
(“Only a nationwide injunction will ‘prevent irreparable injury to plaintiffs[.... ]’ However, in recognition of the
currently pending parallel litigation concerning the challenge legal regime, the injunction will not apply to the Western
District of Louisiana and the Northern District of West Virginia.”) (footnotes omitted).
46 Compare Morley, supra note 30 at 490–91 (“A Defendant-Oriented Injunction effectively transforms an individual(continued...)
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seek judicial relief for persons not before the court.47 However, unlike nationwide injunctions,
class actions are subject to specific requirements that must be satisfied before a court can certify a
class and award class-wide relief.48
In addition, courts faced with an arguably unlawful government action may issue different forms
of relief depending on the type of case and the status of litigation. These forms of relief are
closely related but have different names and follow different procedures:
•
Temporary restraining order (TRO)—the most preliminary form of injunctive relief, a
TRO serves to prevent imminent harm on a short-term basis while the court considers
whether to enter a preliminary injunction. A court may enter a TRO without providing the
party to be enjoined notice and an opportunity to respond.49
•
Preliminary injunction (PI)—an injunction designed to preserve the status quo while a
case remains pending. Before entering a PI, a court considers a motion from the party
seeking the injunction and provides the party to be enjoined the opportunity to respond.
Briefing on a motion for PI may be expedited when urgent action is required or when a
TRO has been sought but the court wants to hear from both sides. The court may modify
or dissolve the injunction during litigation.50
•
Permanent injunction—an injunction that issues once the court has decided a case on the
merits.51 Such an injunction applies indefinitely unless the court sets an expiration date,
the issuing court or another court of competent jurisdiction modifies the injunction, or the
injunction is overturned on appeal.52
In a case involving review of agency action, a court may also stay a challenged action pending
judicial review or vacate an action and remand it to the agency after holding it unlawful.53 A stay
plaintiff lawsuit into a de facto class action, without satisfying the requirements of Rule 23 or giving the injunction’s
purported beneficiaries notice of the suit or an opportunity to opt out.”), with Alan M. Trammell, Demystifying
Nationwide Injunctions, 98 TEX. L. REV. 67, 72, 108 (2019) (focusing analysis of nationwide injunctions on those
issued “in the absence of a duly certified class action”), and Frost, supra note 4, at 1070 (defining “nationwide
injunction” to refer to “an injunction at any stage of the litigation that bars the defendant from taking action against
individuals who are not parties to the lawsuit in a case that is not brought as a class action”). See also, e.g., Robinson v.
Labrador, 747 F. Supp. 3d 1331, 1348-49 (D. Idaho 2024) (considering whether certain legal concerns about
nationwide injunctions apply to a request for class certification and concluding that they do not).
47 See CRS In Focus IF12763, Class Action Lawsuits: An Introduction, by Bryan L. Adkins (2024).
48 See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23; see also CRS Infographic IG10072, Class Action Certification Requirements, by Bryan L.
Adkins (2025).
49 Temporary Restraining Order, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (12th ed. 2024). While courts issue TROs against the
federal government in some nationwide injunction cases, one commentator notes that he has found no examples of
nationwide injunctions against the United States issued without notice and opines, “I cannot think of an emergency that
clamors for such immediate attention that the judge should grant the plaintiff an ex parte TRO against the ubiquitous
United States without any notice at all.” Rendleman, supra note 29, at 966.
50 Preliminary Injunction, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (12th ed. 2024).
51 A decision on the merits refers to a court’s resolution of the substantive legal issues presented in a case. See Merits,
BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (12th ed. 2024) (“The elements or grounds of a claim or defense; the substantive
considerations to be taken into account in deciding a case, as opposed to extraneous or technical points, esp. of
procedure[.]”). In nationwide injunction cases, the question on the merits is generally whether a challenged government
action is lawful or unlawful.
52 Permanent Injunction, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (12th ed. 2024).
53 See, e.g., Ryan, LLC v. FTC, No. 3:24-CV-00986-E, 2024 WL 3879954 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 20, 2024); Restaurant L.
Ctr. v. Dep’t of Lab., 115 F.4th 396 (5th Cir. 2024). See also District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1712–13; infra
“Nationwide Injunctions and APA Litigation.” In addition to stays pending judicial review of agency action under the
APA, courts may sometimes enter administrative stays to pause policies temporarily in time-sensitive emergency
(continued...)
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or vacatur may have the same practical effect as an injunction, preventing the challenged
regulation or policy from taking effect. However, a stay or vacatur is sometimes viewed as a less
extreme remedy than an injunction because it renders the rule or policy itself ineffective rather
than directly requiring the government to act or refrain from acting.54 The government generally
does not attempt to enforce policies that have been stayed or vacated,55 but courts sometimes stay
or vacate policies and also enjoin the relevant agencies from enforcing the policies.56
Alternatively, if a court initially enters a stay or vacatur and the government nonetheless tries to
enforce the policy, the court may later grant injunctive relief.57
There is no one correct way to resolve the foregoing questions about what qualifies as a
nationwide injunction. For purposes of this report, CRS has taken the following approach:
•
•
•
•
Included only injunctions issued by federal courts;
Included only injunctions against the federal government or federal officials, not
injunctions that bind states, state officials, or private parties;
Excluded class actions certified at the time of the nationwide injunction’s
issuance;58
Excluded injunctions that combine with one or more other injunctions to block
policies in their entirety but that, standing alone, do not do so;
litigation. See, e.g., Dellinger v. Bessent, 2025 WL 450488 (D.D.C. Feb. 10, 2025) (“An administrative stay ‘buys the
court time to deliberate’: it ‘do[es] not typically reflect the court’s consideration of the merits,’ but instead ‘reflects a
first-blush judgment about the relative consequences’ of the case. While administrative stays are more common in
appellate courts, district courts have recognized their applicability in cases seeking emergency relief[.]”) (citing United
States v. Texas, 144 S. Ct. 797, 798 (2024) (Barrett, J., concurring) (internal citation omitted). Administrative stays are
not included in this report’s count of nationwide injunctions.
54 See, e.g., Texas v. United States, 40 F.4th 205, 219 (5th Cir. 2022) (“There are meaningful differences between an
injunction, which is a ‘drastic and extraordinary remedy,’ and vacatur, which is ‘a less drastic remedy.’”) (quoting
Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139, 165 (2010)); see also Monsanto Co., 561 U.S. at 165–66 (“[i]f a
less drastic remedy (such as partial or complete vacatur of [a challenged agency action])” is “sufficient to redress” a
plaintiff’s injuries, “no recourse to the additional and extraordinary relief of an injunction [is] warranted.”).
55 For discussion of circumstances in which an agency may decline to follow a judicial order invalidating a policy—for
example, by refusing to follow the case law of one court of appeals in actions it takes that will be reviewed by a
different court of appeals—see CRS Report R47882, Agency Nonacquiescence: An Overview of Constitutional and
Practical Considerations, by Benjamin M. Barczewski (2023).
56 See, e.g., Rural & Migrant Ministry v. EPA, 510 F. Supp. 3d 138 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) (granting a “stay and restraining
order”); cf. New York v. U.S. Dep’t of Com., 351 F. Supp. 3d 502, 676–77 (S.D.N.Y. 2019) (discussing when an
injunction is necessary in addition to vacatur). It is sometimes unclear whether a court order staying agency action is
also granting a nationwide injunction. See, e.g., Chamber of Com. of United States v. Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau, 733
F. Supp. 3d 558 (N.D. Tex. 2024) (granting a “Motion for Preliminary Injunction to stay the Final Rule from going into
effect”); Britto v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, No. 2:23-CV-019-Z, 2023 WL 7418291 (N.D.
Tex. Nov. 8, 2023) (granting an “injunction prohibiting ATF from enforcing the Rule” and staying the challenged rule).
CRS omitted both of these cases from this report’s analysis because they did not expressly enjoin enforcement of the
challenged agency actions against all persons and entities.
57 See, e.g., Chamber of Com. of United States. v. NLRB, 723 F. Supp. 3d 498, 519 (E.D. Tex. 2024) (vacating a rule,
issuing a declaratory judgment that enforcing the rule would be unlawful, and stating, “Plaintiffs or their members may,
of course, seek an injunction should defendants threaten to depart from the declaratory judgment.”).
58 Specifically, CRS excluded from the tables injunctions issued in cases where the court certified a class before or
contemporaneously with the issuance of the injunction, even if the class included all persons affected by a challenged
government action. CRS included cases in which a motion for class certification was pending at the time the injunction
issued, regardless of whether the motion was ultimately granted or denied. See, e.g., Hamama v. Adducci, 261 F. Supp.
3d 820 (E.D. Mich. 2017), vacated and remanded, 912 F.3d 869 (6th Cir. 2018) (in a case brought as a class action by
Iraqi nationals subject to final orders of removal, issuing a nationwide injunction to prevent such person from being
removed from the United States before reaching a decision on class certification).
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•
•
•
Excluded injunctions that block policies in their entirety with the exception of
limited carveouts to defer to other courts;
Included all forms of equitable relief that bar the government from enforcing a
policy, such as TROs, PIs, injunctions pending appeal, and permanent
injunctions; and
Excluded stays and vacatur of agency actions unless the agencies were also
expressly enjoined from implementing the stayed or vacated actions.
This definition excludes some high-profile court decisions that were widely reported in the press
as nationwide inunctions.59 In some of those cases, the courts expressly considered whether to
grant injunctive relief and instead chose to stay or vacate challenged government actions without
entering an injunction.60
Searching for Nationwide Injunctions
There is no way to automatically identify court orders granting nationwide injunctions. In some
cases, courts issue orders explicitly stating that they apply “nationwide” or otherwise block
challenged measures in their entirety.61 However, there is no standard language that courts must
use when issuing nationwide injunctions, nor is there an applicable federal statute, procedural
rule, or controlling Supreme Court case that courts routinely cite in such orders.62
To produce the tables in this report, CRS searched federal cases in Lexis+ for the search terms
((“nationwide” OR “nation-wide”) w/3 injunction) for date ranges corresponding to President
Trump’s first term in office and President Biden’s term in office.63 CRS then manually reviewed
results to find cases that fit the criteria outlined above. In addition, CRS reviewed news reports
59 See, e.g., Sarah McCammon, Judges’ Dueling Decisions Put Access to a Key Abortion Drug in Jeopardy
Nationwide, NPR (Apr. 7, 3023), https://www.npr.org/2023/04/07/1159220452/abortion-pill-drug-mifepristone-judgetexas-amarillo; All. for Hippocratic Med. v. FDA, 668 F. Supp. 3d 507, 559–60 (N.D. Tex. 2023), vacated, 117 F.4th
336 (5th Cir. 2024); Brad Kutner, Judge Issues National Injunction Blocking Biden’s Airplane Mask Mandate, NAT’L
L.J. (Apr. 18, 2022), https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2022/04/18/judge-issues-national-injunction-blockingbidens-airplane-mask-mandate; Health Freedom Def. Fund, Inc. v. Biden, 599 F. Supp. 3d 1144 (M.D. Fla. 2022). Cf.
Mark Joseph Stern, Why Roberts and Kavanaugh Got So Furious at Biden’s Solicitor General, SLATE (Dec. 2, 2022),
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/12/supreme-court-biden-immigration-masks-debt-relief-elizabethprelogar.html (asserting that some district courts “largely treat vacatur as a form of nationwide injunction—halting the
enforcement of a regulation anywhere, by anyone, against any party—so it’s fair to use the two terms interchangeably,
though they’re technically distinct.”).
60 See, e.g., All. for Hippocratic Med. v. FDA, 668 F. Supp. 3d 507, 559–60 (N.D. Tex. 2023), vacated, 117 F.4th 336
(5th Cir. 2024) (“Because the Court finds injunctive relief is generally appropriate, Section 705 plainly authorizes the
lesser remedy of issuing ‘all necessary and appropriate process” to postpone the effective date of the challenged
actions.... Accordingly, the Court hereby STAYS the effective date of FDA’s September 28, 2000, Approval of
mifepristone[.]’”).
61 E.g., Texas v. United States, 524 F. Supp. 3d 598, 667–68 (S.D. Tex. 2021) (“This preliminary injunction is granted
on a nationwide basis and prohibits enforcement and implementation of the policies described ... in every place
Defendants have jurisdiction to enforce and implement the January 20 Memorandum.”).
62 Some courts issuing nationwide injunctions cite Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 702 (1979), for the proposition
that “injunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the
plaintiffs.” E.g., Chicago v. Barr, 961 F.3d 882, 920–21 (7th Cir. 2020) (citing Califano and stating, “It is widely
accepted—even by self-professed opponents of universal injunctions—that a court may impose the equitable relief
necessary to render complete relief to the plaintiff, even if that relief extends incidentally to non-parties.”).
63 CRS did not run separate Lexis+ searches for alternative terms such as universal injunction. Many sources that use
that term also include the term nationwide injunction. See, e.g., Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667, 713 n.1 (2018)
(Thomas, J., concurring). Sources that use the term universal injunction but not nationwide injunction generally relate
to universal injunctions against states. See, e.g., Tenn. Conf. of the NAACP v. Lee, 105 F.4th 888, 906 (6th Cir. 2024).
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about nationwide injunctions from both Administrations and included cases that fit the criteria but
did not show up in the Lexis+ searches. CRS cross-checked these results against the list of
nationwide injunctions published in the Harvard Law Review, but, because the time frames and
methodologies used to produce the two lists differ, there is not complete overlap between them.64
Due to the lack of standardization in nationwide injunction cases, it is possible that there are other
cases that fit this report’s criteria for inclusion but were not identified via CRS’s methodology.
Counting Nationwide Injunctions
Even after a working definition of nationwide injunction has been adopted and cases that fit the
definition have been identified, there is still a question of how to count such injunctions. A single
federal law or policy may be challenged in multiple cases, and courts may grant, deny, or modify
injunctive relief at multiple phases in litigation. This means that there are several possible ways to
count nationwide injunctions:
•
•
•
By policy, such that any government action subject to at least one nationwide
injunction counts once, regardless of whether it was universally enjoined by one
court or multiple courts;
By case, such that each case in which a nationwide injunction was issued at any
phase of litigation counts once, regardless of whether the case involved multiple
challenged laws or policies, whether multiple nationwide injunctions issued in
the case, or whether any such injunctions were upheld, reversed, or modified on
appeal; or
By order, such that if a court initially issued a TRO against a challenged policy,
then a PI, then a permanent injunction following litigation on the merits, the case
would be counted three times.65
For purposes of this report, unless otherwise specified, CRS counted nationwide injunctions by
case.66 Each case (or set of consolidated cases) in which at least one nationwide injunction was
issued by a federal court at any level is included as a single entry in the tables.67 Some federal
laws, regulations, or policies were subject to nationwide injunctions in multiple cases and thus are
included in the count more than once.68 The tables provide subsequent history related to the
nationwide injunctions in each case, indicating whether multiple nationwide injunctions issued in
each case and noting relevant decisions on appeal.
64 See District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1704 (“First, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
to DOJ, editors of the Law Review received a dataset of the nationwide injunctions identified by the Department from
1963 into the beginning of 2020. Second, editors compiled a list of nationwide injunctions issued from the beginning of
2020 through the end of 2023.”) (footnotes omitted).
65 Counting by order could arguably lead to inflated numbers because, for example, if a court enters a TRO and then a
PI, two orders issue but the practical effect is that a single policy remains blocked. Moreover, a court that enters a TRO
in a case may subsequently enter a PI, though this is not a guarantee. See, e.g., Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO v.
Ezell, No. 25-10276-GAO, 2025 WL 470459 (D. Mass. Feb. 12, 2025) (dissolving TRO and denying motion for PI).
Counting by court order could also raise questions about how to count appellate proceedings—for instance, whether an
appellate court ruling upholding a district court order granting a nationwide injunction should count separately.
66 The exception is the procedural posture section, in which CRS counted nationwide injunctions by court order. See
infra “Procedural Posture in Nationwide Injunction Cases.”
67 One case in which nationwide injunctions issued under both Administrations is included once in the table for each
Administration. See E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr, 385 F. Supp. 3d 922 (N.D. Cal. 2019); E. Bay Sanctuary
Covenant v. Barr, 519 F. Supp. 3d 663 (N.D. Cal. 2021).
68 See, e.g., Faust v. Vilsack, 519 F. Supp. 3d 470 (E.D. Wis. 2021); Wynn v. Vilsack, 545 F. Supp. 3d 1271 (M.D. Fla.
2021); Holman v. Vilsack, No. 21-1085-STA-JAY, 2021 WL 2877915 (W.D. Tenn. July 8, 2021).
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CRS has divided the cases discussed in this report by presidential Administration, covering the
first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration.69 CRS has identified nationwide
injunctions by the President who was in office at the time the relevant order issued rather than the
Administration that promulgated the enjoined policy. In almost all cases, the Administration that
adopted a challenged policy was also the Administration enjoined from enforcing it.70
Using the foregoing methodology, and subject to the noted caveats, CRS has identified 86 cases
in which nationwide injunctions issued under the first Trump Administration71 and 28 cases in
which nationwide injunctions issued under the Biden Administration.72 The nationwide injunction
was initially issued by a federal district court in all but two of the listed cases, the exceptions
being the two injunctions issued initially by federal appellate courts.73
The lists of cases in the Appendix to this report serve to illustrate some key themes in federal
court practice with respect to nationwide injunctions under the first Trump Administration and the
Biden Administration. However, for all the foregoing reasons, they should not be understood as
definitive lists of every nationwide injunction issued against policies of each Administration.
Analysis of Nationwide Injunctions
The following sections provide analysis of selected trends in the nationwide injunctions issued
under the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration based on the cases identified
in the Appendix.
Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases
The charts below provide a breakdown by subject matter of nationwide injunction cases under the
first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration. CRS categorized cases by subject
matter manually. While some cases raised multiple legal and policy issues and could potentially
be classified in multiple subject areas,74 CRS selected one issue area per case for ease of analysis.
Table 1. Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases During the
First Trump Administration
Topic
Number of Cases
Immigration
36
Federal Funding (Immigration)
10
Health Care
9
69 Nationwide injunctions issued under the second Trump Administration, e.g., Washington v. Trump, No. C25-0127-
JCC, __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2025 WL 272198 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 23, 2025), are outside the scope of this report.
70 But see, e.g., Dialysis Patient Citizens v. Burwell, No. 4:17-CV-16, 2017 WL 365271 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 25, 2017)
(TRO against regulation of Medicare-certified dialysis facilities issued under the Obama Administration); Price v. Barr,
514 F. Supp. 3d 171 (D.D.C. 2021), rev’d and remanded sub nom. Price v. Garland, 45 F.4th 1059 (D.C. Cir. 2022)
(permanent injunction against permit and fee requirements for commercial filming activities in national parks
implemented under the Obama Administration and challenged in court under the Trump Administration).
71 See infra Table A-1.
72 See infra Table A-2.
73 See Nebraska v. Biden, 52 F.4th 1044 (8th Cir. 2022); Career Colls. & Sch. of Tex. v. Dep’t of Educ., 98 F.4th 220
(5th Cir. 2024), cert. granted in part, No. 24-413, 2025 WL 65914 (U.S. Jan. 10, 2025).
74 See, e.g., infra note 75 and accompanying text.
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Topic
Number of Cases
Postal Service
6
Census
5
Military
5
Environmental Law
3
First Amendment
3
Firearms
2
Technology
2
Energy
1
Federal Aid
1
FOIA
1
Housing
1
Labor and Employment
1
Source: CRS.
Table 2. Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases During the
Biden Administration
Topic
Number of Cases
Immigration
8
Equal Protection
4
Health Care
4
Student Loans
4
Financial Regulation
2
Military
2
Congressional Power
1
Energy
1
First Amendment
1
Public Works
1
Source: CRS.
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Figure 1. Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases During the First Trump
Administration and the Biden Administration
Figure is interactive in the HTML report version.
Source: CRS.
Under both the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration, the most common
subject matter of cases in which nationwide injunctions issued was immigration. Under the first
Trump Administration, immigration cases accounted for 36 out of 86 nationwide injunction cases,
or 41.9% of the total. In addition, 10 cases under the first Trump Administration, or 11.6%,
involved disputes over federal funding that also implicated federal immigration policy. In those
10 cases, the legal issue presented concerned the allocation of federal funds, but the funds were to
be allocated or withheld for purposes related to immigration enforcement.75 Standing alone, those
federal funding cases were the second-largest category under the Trump Administration.
Combined, immigration cases and federal funding cases that implicated immigration policy
75 Specifically, some of the cases involved conditioning the receipt of federal funds by states or localities on the
jurisdictions’ compliance with certain conditions related to immigration policy. See, e.g., Cnty. of Santa Clara v.
Trump, 250 F. Supp. 3d 497 (N.D. Cal. 2017). Others involved the allocation of federal funds to construct a wall at the
U.S.-Mexico border. See, e.g., Sierra Club v. Trump, 379 F. Supp. 3d 883 (N.D. Cal. 2019), aff’d, 963 F.3d 874 (9th
Cir. 2020), vacated and remanded sub nom. Biden v. Sierra Club, 142 S. Ct. 46 (2021).
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accounted for more than half (53.5%) of all nationwide injunction cases under the first Trump
Administration. Under the Biden Administration, immigration cases accounted for 8 out of 28
nationwide injunction cases, or 28.6%.
Health care was a common issue in nationwide injunction cases under both Administrations.
Under the Trump Administration, health care was the third most common topic with nine cases,
or 10.5% of the total. Under the Biden Administration, health care was tied as the second most
common issue with four cases, or 14.3% of the total. (There were also four equal protection cases
under the Biden Administration, three of which challenged a single program providing loan
forgiveness for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers,76 as well as four cases challenging
federal policies related to student loans.)
One health care case from the Trump Administration and three from the Biden Administration
were directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that 4 of the 13 health care cases
(30.8%) across both Administrations were related to COVID-19. Thus, even discounting COVID19-related matters, health care was among the topics most commonly addressed by nationwide
injunctions.
Geographic Distribution of Nationwide Injunction Cases
The tables and maps below show the geographic distribution of district courts that issued
nationwide injunctions during the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration.
Specifically, they show the number of district court cases in which nationwide injunctions issued
in each state under the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration.77 Under the
Biden Administration, two nationwide injunctions were issued by circuit courts in the first
instance after a district court denied a motion for a PI.78 Those two cases are listed in Table A-1
in the Appendix but are not included in the tables or maps in this section.
Table 3. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunctions
During the First Trump Administration
Statea
Number of Cases
California
23
District of Columbia
N.D. Cal. – 20
C.D. Cal. – 3
13
New York
11
Maryland
District Courts
S.D.N.Y – 7
E.D.N.Y. – 4
9
Washington
9
W.D. Wa. – 6
E.D. Wa. – 3
Pennsylvania
4
E.D. Pa. – 4
Illinois
3
N.D. Ill. – 3
Hawaii
2
76 See Faust v. Vilsack, 519 F. Supp. 3d 470 (E.D. Wis. 2021); Wynn v. Vilsack, 545 F. Supp. 3d 1271 (M.D. Fla.
2021); Holman v. Vilsack, No. 21-1085-STA-JAY, 2021 WL 2877915 (W.D. Tenn. July 8, 2021).
77 Some states contain multiple federal district courts. CRS elected to map nationwide injunctions by state rather than
by judicial district because that level of detail appeared most likely to be easily legible and useful to policymakers.
78 Nebraska, 52 F.4th 1044; Career Colls., 98 F.4th 220.
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Statea
Oregon
Number of Cases
District Courts
2
Texas
2
Colorado
1
Massachusetts
1
Michigan
1
Montana
1
North Carolina
1
South Carolina
1
Virginia
1
Wyoming
1
E.D. Tex. – 1
W.D. Tex. – 1
E.D. Mich. – 1
M.D.N.C. – 1
E.D. Va. – 1
Source: CRS.
Notes: States with no district courts noted contain one judicial district each. No nationwide injunctions were
issued in the first instance by federal appellate courts during the first Trump Administration.
a. For purposes of this table, the State column includes the District of Columbia.
Figure 2. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunctions
During the First Trump Administration
Source: CRS.
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Table 4. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunctions
During the Biden Administration
Statea
Number of Cases
Texas
District Courts
10
S.D. Tex. – 5
N.D. Tex. – 4
E.D. Tex. – 1
California
2
N.D. Cal. – 2
Louisiana
2
W.D. La. – 2
Virginia
2
E.D. Va. – 2
District of Columbia
1
Florida
1
M.D. Fla. – 1
Georgia
1
S.D. Ga. – 1
Kansas
1
Kentucky
1
E.D. Ky. – 1
Mississippi
1
S.D. Miss. – 1
Missouri
1
E.D. Mo. – 1
Ohio
1
S.D. Ohio – 1
Tennessee
1
W.D. Tenn. – 1
Wisconsin
1
E.D. Wis. – 1
Source: CRS.
Notes: States with no district courts noted contain one judicial district each. One nationwide injunction issued
in the first instance by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and one issued in the first instance by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit are omitted from this table.
a. For purposes of this table, the State column includes the District of Columbia.
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Figure 3. Geographic Distribution of District Courts Issuing Nationwide Injunction
During the Biden Administration
Source: CRS.
During the first Trump Administration, 22 district courts in seventeen states and the District of
Columbia issued nationwide injunctions. Federal courts in California issued nationwide
injunctions in the largest number of cases—23 in total (20 of which proceeded in the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California). The District of Columbia accounted for the secondhighest number of cases (13), followed by New York (11), Maryland (9), and Washington (9).
Courts in some other states issued nationwide injunctions in between one and four cases.
During the Biden Administration, 16 district courts in 13 states and the District of Columbia
issued nationwide injunctions. In addition, as noted, two federal circuit courts of appeals issued
nationwide injunctions in cases where a district court did not issue a nationwide injunction.79
Federal courts in Texas issued nationwide injunctions in 10 cases, and district courts in
California, Louisiana, and Virginia each issued nationwide injunctions in two cases. No other
state’s federal courts issued nationwide injunctions in more than one case under the Biden
Administration.
Multiple factors may influence the geographic distribution of courts that issue nationwide
injunctions. One key factor is forum selection by plaintiffs. When filing a civil suit, the plaintiff
selects the court where the suit will initially proceed. Traditionally, the plaintiff is the “master of
the forum” and may sue in the court of their choice so long as jurisdiction exists and the venue is
appropriate, though defendants and courts may sometimes override the plaintiff’s choice of
forum.80 Plaintiffs challenging government action may have significant choice in where to file
79 Id.
80 See, e.g., Amoche v. Guarantee Trust Life Ins. Co., 556 F.3d 41, 50 (1st Cir. 2009).
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suit, because many federal laws and policies affect people in multiple geographic locations.81
Plaintiffs sometimes seek out specific courts they believe are most likely to rule favorably, a
practice known as forum shopping.82
Some commentators and litigants believe that certain courts or judges are more likely to strike
down certain federal policies (or the policies of a particular Administration) or enjoin such
policies nationwide.83 This perception may lead to challengers seeking out those courts or judges,
giving them a greater opportunity to enter nationwide injunctions and in turn reinforcing the
perception.84
Factors other than forum shopping may also influence which courts issue nationwide injunctions.
For instance, challenges to federal policies generally proceed in districts where one or more
parties are located or where the events giving rise to the litigation occurred.85 Not all federal
policies affect persons nationwide, which may limit the judicial districts where venue is
appropriate.86 In some cases, federal statutes require certain matters to proceed in specific federal
courts.87 Thus, the fact that certain courts issued a relatively large number of nationwide
injunctions does not necessarily mean that those courts are more likely than others to issue
nationwide injunctions in any particular case.
As discussed further below, to the extent Congress is concerned with the geographic distribution
of nationwide injunction cases, it could consider legislation that would channel some or all
nationwide injunction cases to specific courts or randomize the assignment of these cases.88
Procedural Posture in Nationwide Injunction Cases
Courts can enter injunctions, including nationwide injunctions, at multiple phases of litigation,
either before or after full consideration of the merits of a case.89 It is thus possible for multiple
81 See 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) (providing that venue may lie in “a judicial district in which any defendant resides” or “a
judicial district in which a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred”).
82 See, e.g., Forum-shopping, supra note 20 (“The practice of choosing the most favorable jurisdiction or court in
which a claim might be heard.”). Plaintiffs may consider existing precedents and elect to sue in courts that have
interpreted the applicable laws in ways that are more likely to benefit them or avoid courts that they know have
interpreted the laws unfavorably. Plaintiffs may also select forums based on how they believe different courts are likely
to resolve novel legal questions, sometimes basing their decisions on a perceived partisan lean of the courts or judges.
In some federal cases, a plaintiff may attempt to select not only the court in which the claim proceeds but also the
specific judge who will hear the case, a practice sometimes referred to as judge shopping. See, e.g., Tobi Raji, One
Judge, One Courthouse: Why Judge Shopping Is an Issue in the U.S., WASH. POST (Sept. 23, 2024),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/23/judge-shopping-kacsmaryk-courts-texas/. For
additional discussion of forum shopping and judge shopping, see infra “Nationwide Injunctions and Forum Shopping.”
83 See, e.g., Rule by District Judge, supra note 3, at 2 (statement of Prof. Nicholas Bagley).
84 See, e.g., Cass, supra note 32, at 27–32.
85 See 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b).
86
California and Texas, the states where district courts issued the most nationwide injunctions under the first Trump
Administration and the Biden Administration, respectively, are the two most populous states. See, Most Populous, U.S.
CENSUS BUREAU, https://www.census.gov/popclock/embed.php?component=populous (last visited Feb. 21, 2025). Both
states also border Mexico, so residents and government officials in those states may have a particular interest in
immigration policies, which often feature in nationwide injunction cases.
87 See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 2343; 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b).
88 See infra “Nationwide Injunctions and Forum Shopping.”
89 Preliminary injunctive relief, such as a TRO or a PI, serves to preserve the status quo while a court considers the
merits. A permanent injunction may be entered after the court considers the merits of the case and generally applies
indefinitely unless modified by the issuing court or another court with jurisdiction over the case. See “Overview of
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nationwide injunctions to issue in a single case. To illustrate, a court might enter a nationwide
TRO to bar enforcement of a policy for a short time while the court considers a request for a PI.90
It could then enter a nationwide PI to preserve the status quo pending litigation on the merits.91 If
the challengers eventually prevail on the merits, the court might enter a nationwide permanent
injunction against the policy. In the alternative, the court could decline to grant injunctive relief at
any of the foregoing stages of litigation, or it could grant an injunction but decline to bar
enforcement as to non-parties.
Unlike the tables in the other sections of the report, where nationwide injunctions are counted by
case, in this section CRS has counted nationwide injunctions by court order. Because there are
some cases in which more than one nationwide injunction was issued, the totals in this section are
higher than the case totals in the Appendix and the other sections.
Table 5. Procedural Posture of Nationwide Injunctions During the
First Trump Administration
Type of Relief
Number of Orders
TRO
11
PI
70
Permanent Injunction
23
Total
104
Source: CRS.
Table 6. Procedural Posture of Nationwide Injunctions During the
Biden Administration
Type of Relief
Number of Orders
TRO
3
PI
20
Permanent Injunction
7
Total
30
Source: CRS.
In the nationwide injunction cases CRS has identified, a significant majority involved nationwide
injunctions issued before a final ruling on the merits: 77.9% of orders under the Trump
Administration were either TROs or PIs. Under the Biden Administration, that total was 76.7%.
By far the most common specific type of order was PIs, which accounted for 67.3% of
nationwide injunction orders under President Trump and 66.7% under President Biden.
Injunctive Relief,” in CRS Report R46902, Nationwide Injunctions: Law, History, and Proposals for Reform, by
Joanna R. Lampe (2021).
90 For additional information on the different types of relief available in suits against the government, see CRS Legal
Sidebar LSB11271, Enforcement of Court Orders Against the Executive Branch, by Joanna R. Lampe (2025). For
procedures governing the issuance of TROs and PIs, see FED. R. CIV. P. 65.
91 See, e.g., Hawai’i v. Trump, 241 F. Supp. 3d 1119 (D. Haw. 2017) (entering TRO); Hawai’i v. Trump, 245 F. Supp.
3d 1227 (D. Haw. 2017) (entering PI), aff’d in part, vacated in part, remanded, 859 F.3d 741 (9th Cir. 2017), vacated
as moot, 583 U.S. 941 (2017).
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In some cases, courts issued multiple nationwide injunctions before full consideration of the
merits. In some of these cases, the court first issued a nationwide TRO and later issued a PI.92 In
others, the court issued a PI against one government policy, then later issued an additional PI
against a separate but related policy.93
CRS identified a relatively small number of cases in which courts issued nationwide permanent
injunctions. A smaller subset of those cases involved a district court entering a nationwide PI
followed by a nationwide permanent injunction.94 There are several possible reasons for the
relatively small number of nationwide permanent injunctions. One is that litigation in many
nationwide injunction cases does not reach a final decision by a court on the merits of the
matter.95 This may be because the government settles the case or changes policy after an initial
adverse ruling96 or because events render the litigation moot before it works its way through the
courts.97 A nationwide TRO or PI may be reversed on appeal on grounds that leave a district court
no discretion to enter a nationwide permanent injunction on remand.98 Even when persons
challenging a policy ultimately prevail on the merits, some final rulings vacate or otherwise
invalidate government action without expressly enjoining the government.99
92 See, e.g., Hawai’i v. Trump, 241 F. Supp. 3d 1119 (D. Haw. 2017) (granting TRO); Hawai’i v. Trump, 245 F. Supp.
3d 1227 (D. Haw. 2017) (granting PI), aff’d in part, vacated in part, remanded, 859 F.3d 741 (9th Cir. 2017), vacated
as moot, 583 U.S. 941 (2017); Texas v. United States, 515 F. Supp. 3d 627 (S.D. Tex. 2021) (order granting TRO),
amended by 524 F. Supp. 3d 598 (S.D. Tex. 2021) (order granting PI).
93 See, e.g., New York v. DHS, 408 F. Supp. 3d 334 (S.D.N.Y. 2019) (granting PI), amended by 475 F. Supp. 3d 208
(S.D.N.Y. 2020); Walker v. Azar, 480 F. Supp. 3d 417 (E.D.N.Y. 2020) (granting PI), amended by Walker v. Azar, No.
20CV2834FBSMG, 2020 WL 6363970 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 29, 2020).
94 See, e.g., Cnty. of Santa Clara v. Trump, 250 F. Supp. 3d 497 (N.D. Cal. 2017) (granting PI), amended by 275 F.
Supp. 3d 1196 (N.D. Cal 2017) (granting permanent injunction), aff’d in part and vacated in part, City & Cnty. of San
Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir. 2018) (vacating nationwide injunction); City of Chicago v. Sessions, 264
F. Supp. 3d 933 (N.D. Ill. 2017) (granting PI), amended by 321 F. Supp. 3d 855 (N.D. Ill. 2018) (granting permanent
injunction).
95 Cf. Steve Vladeck, Bonus 109: The Spring 2025 Emergency Docket, ONE FIRST (Nov. 21, 2024),
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/bonus-109-the-spring-2025-emergency (noting with respect to cases on the Supreme
Court’s emergency docket during the first Trump Administration, which included but were not limited to nationwide
injunction cases, that “almost all of those cases never made it back to the Court for plenary review”).
96 Compare Feds for Med. Freedom v. Biden, 581 F. Supp. 3d 826 (S.D. Tex. 2022) (granting PI), vacated, 144 S. Ct.
480 (2023) with Amelia Gruber, It’s Official: No More COVID Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers and
Contractors, GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE (May 9, 2023), https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/05/covid-vaccinemandate-federal-workers-contractors-over/386123/.
97 Compare Nat’l Urb. League v. Ross, 489 F. Supp. 3d 939 (N.D. Cal. 2020) (PI against U.S. Census Bureau decision
to reduce time frames for data collection and processing for the 2020 census) with Press Release, U.S. Census Bureau,
Statement on 2020 Census Data Collection Ending (Oct. 13, 2020) [hereinafter 2020 Census Collection Statement],
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/2020-census-data-collection-ending.html (announcing that
“field data collection operations for the 2020 Census will conclude on October 15, 2020,” following the Supreme
Court’s stay of the district court’s injunction).
98 See, e.g., Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter & Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U.S. 657, 663 (2020) (“We hold
that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for
employers with religious and conscientious objections. We accordingly reverse the Third Circuit’s judgment and
remand with instructions to dissolve the nationwide preliminary injunction.”)
99 See, e.g., Chamber of Com. of United States v. NLRB, 723 F.Supp.3d 498, 519 (E.D. Tex. 2024) (granting
declaratory judgment and vacating challenged rule but stating, “It is ‘anticipated that [defendants] would respect the
declaratory judgment,’ so the court chooses not to issue an injunction at this time”) (quoting Poe v. Gerstein, 417 U.S.
281, 281 (1974) (internal citation omitted)). The government may appeal such rulings but generally abides by rulings
that are in effect even if not required to do so by an injunction. If the government attempts to enforce a policy that a
court has invalidated, affected parties may return to court and seek an injunction. See Chamber of Com., 723 F.Supp.3d
at 519 (“Plaintiffs or their members may, of course, seek an injunction should defendants threaten to depart from the
declaratory judgment.”).
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As discussed further below, some commentators raise particular legal and policy concerns about
nationwide injunctions issued before full consideration of the merits of a case, and some proposed
reforms specifically target nationwide TROs and PIs.100
Nationwide Injunction Cases on Appeal
Decisions of lower federal courts granting or denying nationwide injunctions are reviewable on
appeal. With respect to district court decisions, an order granting or denying an injunction,
including a nationwide injunction, is usually immediately appealable to the relevant federal
circuit court.101 With respect to decisions of the federal appeals courts, a party may seek
immediate Supreme Court review of an appeals court decision granting or denying injunctive
relief, though the Supreme Court generally has discretion whether or not to consider those
matters.102
While court decisions granting or denying injunctive relief are generally appealable as a matter of
law, as a practical matter, some decisions granting nationwide injunctions are not reviewed on
appeal.103 If an appellate court does review a decision granting a nationwide injunction, there are
several ways it may rule on the case. One option is that the reviewing court may affirm or reverse
on the merits of the case. Because success, or likelihood of success, on the merits is one factor
relevant to the issuance of injunctive relief,104 a holding that a party challenging government
action has not prevailed or is not likely to prevail is grounds for reversal of a nationwide
injunction. A reviewing court may also affirm or reverse specifically as to the propriety of issuing
a nationwide injunction. If a case presents multiple legal issues, a reviewing court may affirm in
part and reverse in part, either on the merits or on the question of injunctive relief. If a case is
subject to review by both an appeals court and the Supreme Court, rulings may differ at different
levels of review in terms of both their reasoning and their outcome.
It is challenging to reduce this complexity to something that can be easily quantified, and in doing
so some nuance is necessarily lost. For purposes of this report, CRS has classified appellate
dispositions in nationwide injunction cases into the following categories:
•
•
No relevant appellate decision—cases where no appeal was filed and cases
where an appeal was filed but an appellate court did not issue a decision that
directly implicated the propriety of the nationwide injunction;
Reversed on the merits—cases where a reviewing appellate court held that the
party challenging a government action had not succeeded, or was not likely to
succeed, on the merits of the challenge;105
100 See infra “Substantive and Procedural Limits on Nationwide Injunctions.”
101 See 28 U.S.C. § 1292 (authorizing appeals from interlocutory decisions, including orders “granting, continuing,
modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions, or refusing to dissolve or modify injunctions”). A TRO is usually not
immediately appealable, but, in certain circumstances, a TRO may be treated as an appealable PI so that a lower court
cannot “shield its orders from appellate review merely by designating them as temporary restraining orders.” Sampson
v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 87 (1974).
102 See 28 U.S.C. § 1254 (“Cases in the courts of appeals may be reviewed by the Supreme Court by ... writ of certiorari
granted upon the petition of any party to any civil or criminal case, before or after rendition of judgment or decree.”).
103 See infra notes 114–115 and accompanying text.
104 See, e.g., Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008).
105 In a small number of cases, a reviewing appellate court both reversed on the merits and also specifically held that a
nationwide injunction was not warranted. See, e.g., Casa de Maryland, Inc. v. Trump, 971 F.3d 220, 255–56 (4th Cir.
2020) (“The plaintiffs are therefore unlikely to succeed on the merits because the DHS Rule is lawful. As the Supreme
(continued...)
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•
•
•
Reversed nationwide injunction—cases where a reviewing appellate court held
that the party challenging a government action had succeeded, or was likely to
succeed, on the merits of the challenge, but a nationwide injunction was not
warranted;
Affirmed but narrowed nationwide injunction—cases where a reviewing
appellate court affirmed a lower court order issuing a nationwide injunction but
narrowed the scope of the injunction;106 and
Affirmed—cases where a reviewing appellate court affirmed a lower court order
issuing a nationwide injunction.107
CRS placed each case into one of the foregoing categories based on the ruling of the highest court
to issue a relevant decision (i.e., either a federal circuit court or the Supreme Court in cases where
the Court heard an appeal).108
CRS omitted from this analysis district court decisions granting or denying stays of nationwide
injunctions issued by the same judge109 and appellate court decisions granting and denying stays
pending appeal of nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts.110 Such stays of court decisions
are distinct from stays of agency action pending judicial review.111 As a practical matter, the grant
or denial of a stay of a nationwide injunction can have significant implications for the parties to
litigation and federal policy generally.112 However, stay motions are preliminary by nature, and
courts often grant or deny stays without full briefing, oral argument, or a written decision.113 This
Court has noted, a likelihood of success on the merits is the most critical factor supporting issuance of a preliminary
injunction, and that likelihood simply is not present here.... A nationwide injunction is a drastic remedy and it was
plainly improper here.”), vacated, 981 F.3d 311 (4th Cir. 2020). Because success or likelihood of success on the merits
is a prerequisite for any injunctive relief, CRS categorized these cases as having been reversed on the merits.
106 In two cases in this category, which were reviewed in a single appeal, the appeals court declined to consider whether
the district court had abused its discretion in issuing a nationwide injunction but held, “Instead, we exercise our own
discretion ... to modify the injunction, limiting it to the states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.” New York v.
DHS, 969 F.3d 42, 88 (2d Cir. 2020). In the other two cases, the court narrowed a nationwide injunction but left some
part of a government action enjoined in its entirety while other portions of the action blocked by the lower court were
permitted to be enforced. See Int’l Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump, 241 F. Supp. 3d 539 (D. Md. 2017); City &
Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sessions, 372 F. Supp. 3d 928 (N.D. Cal. 2019), aff'd in part, vacated in part, remanded sub
nom. City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Garland, 42 F.4th 1078 (9th Cir. 2022).
107 In one case in this category, an appellate court affirmed the issuance of a nationwide injunction and held that
additional portions of the challenged rule should be universally enjoined. See Missouri v. Biden, 738 F. Supp. 3d 1113
(E.D. Mo. 2024), aff’d in part, amended in part, sub nom. Missouri v. Trump, Nos. 24-2332, 24-2351, 2025 WL
518130 (8th Cir. Feb. 18, 2025).
108 To illustrate, in one case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a decision of the district court,
then the Supreme Court vacated and remanded with directions to the district court to “consider what further
proceedings are necessary and appropriate in light of the changed circumstances in this case.” Sierra Club v. Trump,
379 F. Supp. 3d 883 (N.D. Cal. 2019), aff’d, 963 F.3d 874 (9th Cir. 2020), vacated and remanded sub nom. Biden v.
Sierra Club, 142 S. Ct. 46 (2021). CRS classified that case as an affirmance because the Supreme Court did not
consider the merits of the lower courts’ decisions.
109 Occasionally, a district court will enter a nationwide injunction but immediately stay its nationwide scope. See, e.g.,
San Francisco, 372 F. Supp. 3d at 954.
110 See, e.g., Trump v. Karnoski, 586 U.S. 1124 (2019) (“[T]he District Court’s December 11, 2017 order granting a
preliminary injunction is stayed pending disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is sought.”).
111 See infra “Nationwide Injunctions and APA Litigation.”
112 See, e.g., 2020 Census Collection Statement, supra note 97.
113 For discussion of Supreme Court litigation over injunctive relief and requests to stay such relief, see “Motions
Practice: The ‘Shadow Docket,’” in CRS Report R47382, Congressional Control over the Supreme Court, by Joanna
R. Lampe (2023).
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makes it difficult to evaluate courts’ reasoning or draw conclusions from such orders. Thus, cases
where the only appellate court decisions involved motions for a stay of a nationwide injunction
are classified as cases with no relevant appellate decision.
The following tables identify the outcome of appeals in nationwide injunction cases under the
first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration.
Table 7. Nationwide Injunction Cases on Appeal During the
First Trump Administration
Disposition
Number of Cases
No relevant appellate decision
48
Reversed on the merits
17
Reversed nationwide injunction
6
Affirmed but narrowed
nationwide injunction
4
Affirmed
11
Source: CRS.
Table 8. Nationwide Injunction Cases on Appeal During the Biden Administration
Disposition
Number of Cases
No relevant appellate decision
18
Reversed on the merits
3
Reversed nationwide injunction
4
Affirmed
3
Source: CRS.
In the majority of nationwide injunction cases under both the first Trump Administration and the
Biden Administration, CRS identified no relevant appellate decision. This was true for 48 cases
under the Trump Administration, or 55.8% of all cases, and 18 cases under the Biden
Administration, or 64.3%.
There are a number of reasons why a nationwide injunction case may not be reviewed on appeal.
The government may elect not to appeal following an adverse ruling,114 or the case may become
moot due to real world developments before an appellate decision issues.115 In some of the cases
CRS identified, particularly cases under the Biden Administration, litigation remains pending as
of March 2025, so it is possible that additional relevant appellate decisions could issue in the
future.
The fact that a nationwide injunction has not been subject to substantive appellate review does
not necessarily mean that the injunction remains in effect indefinitely. For example, a nationwide
114 Cf. United States v. Mendoza, 464 U.S. 154, 160–61 (1984) (discussing considerations involved in the government’s
decision whether to appeal an adverse court ruling).
115 See, e.g., Biden v. Feds for Med. Freedom, 144 S. Ct. 480 (2023).
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injunction may be stayed in full or in part pending appeal.116 Additionally, if a case becomes moot
on appeal, appellate courts sometimes direct district courts to vacate their decisions as moot.117
Of the 38 cases under the first Trump Administration where CRS identified a relevant appellate
decision, 15, or 39.5%, were affirmed. In some of the affirmances, the reviewing court expressly
held that a nationwide injunction was appropriate.118 In other cases, the appellate court affirmed
without expressly discussing the propriety of a nationwide injunction.119 In four of the
affirmances, which are classified separately in Table 7 but included in the 39.5% noted above, an
appellate court affirmed the nationwide injunction in part, narrowing its scope but leaving at least
part of a challenged policy blocked.120 Among the reversals, 17 cases (44.7% of the 38 cases with
relevant appellate decisions) were reversed on the merits. The remaining six cases (15.8%) were
reversed only as to the nationwide injunction, meaning that the appellate court found that the
challenged policy was, or likely was, unlawful but limited the scope of injunctive relief to the
plaintiffs.121
Of the 10 cases under the Biden Administration where CRS identified a relevant appellate
decision, three, or 30.0%, were affirmed.122 Among the reversals, three (30.0% of the cases with a
relevant appellate decision) were reversed on the merits,123 and four (40.0%) were reversed only
116 See, e.g., Karnoski, 586 U.S. 1124; City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sessions, 372 F. Supp. 3d 928, 954 (N.D. Cal.
2019).
117 See, e.g., Feds for Med. Freedom, 144 S. Ct. 480. Cf. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39 (1950)
(“The established practice of the Court in dealing with a civil case from a court in the federal system which has become
moot while on its way here or pending our decision on the merits is to reverse or vacate the judgment below and
remand with a direction to dismiss.”).
118 See, e.g., Roe v. Dep’t of Def., 947 F.3d 207, 234 (4th Cir. 2020).
119 See, e.g., Dep’t of Com. v. New York, 588 U.S. 752 (2019).
120 See Int’l Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump, 241 F. Supp. 3d 539 (D. Md. 2017); City & Cnty. of San Francisco
v. Sessions, 372 F. Supp. 3d 928 (N.D. Cal. 2019); New York v. DHS, 408 F. Supp. 3d 334 (S.D.N.Y. 2019), aff’d as
modified, 969 F.3d 42 (2d Cir. 2020); Make the Rd. New York v. Cuccinelli, 419 F. Supp. 3d 647 (S.D.N.Y.
2019), aff’d as modified sub nom. New York, 969 F.3d 42.
121 See Cnty. of Santa Clara v. Trump, 250 F. Supp. 3d 497 (N.D. Cal. 2017) (granting PI), amended by 275 F. Supp. 3d
1196 (N.D. Cal 2017) (granting permanent injunction), aff’d in part and vacated in part, City & Cnty. of San Francisco
v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir. 2018) (vacating nationwide injunction); City of Chicago v. Sessions, 264 F. Supp.
3d 933 (N.D. Ill. 2017), aff’d, 888 F.3d 272 (7th Cir. 2018), reh’g en banc granted in part, vacated in part, No. 172991, 2018 WL 4268817 (7th Cir. June 4, 2018), vacated, No. 17-2991, 2018 WL 4268814 (7th Cir. Aug. 10, 2018);
California v. Health & Hum. Servs., 281 F. Supp. 3d 806 (N.D. Cal. 2017), aff’d in part, vacated in part, remanded sub
nom. California v. Azar, 911 F.3d 558 (9th Cir. 2018); Free Speech Coal., Inc. v. Sessions, 322 F. Supp. 3d 605 (E.D.
Pa. 2018), aff’d in part, vacated in part, rev’d in part sub nom. Free Speech Coal., Inc. v. Att’y Gen. United States, 974
F.3d 408 (3d Cir. 2020); City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sessions, 349 F. Supp. 3d 924 (N.D. Cal. 2018), judgment
entered sub nom. California ex rel. Becerra v. Sessions, No. 3:17-CV-04701-WHO, 2018 WL 6069940 (N.D. Cal. Nov.
20, 2018), aff’d in part, vacated in part sub nom. City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Barr, 965 F.3d 753 (9th Cir. 2020);
Washington v. DHS, 408 F. Supp. 3d 1191 (E.D. Wash. 2019), aff’d in part, vacated in part sub nom. City & Cnty. of
San Francisco v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., 981 F.3d 742 (9th Cir. 2020).
122 In one of those cases, the district court that initially heard the case dismissed for lack of standing and declined to
enter an injunction, then the Eighth Circuit granted an injunction pending appeal. The Supreme Court reversed the
district court, agreeing with the appeals court that the challenged policy was unlawful. See Nebraska v. Biden, 52 F.4th
1044 (8th Cir. 2022). Cf. Nebraska v. Biden, 636 F. Supp. 3d 991 (E.D. Mo. 2022), rev’d, 143 S. Ct. 2355 (2023). In
another, the appellate court initially reversed the district court’s grant of a nationwide injunction, then granted rehearing
en banc and affirmed. The Supreme Court ultimately vacated the judgment and directed the district court to dismiss as
moot after President Biden revoked the challenged policy. Feds for Med. Freedom v. Biden, 581 F. Supp. 3d 826 (S.D.
Tex. 2022).
123 See Price v. Barr, 514 F. Supp. 3d 171 (D.D.C. 2021), rev’d and remanded sub nom. Price v. Garland, 45 F.4th 1059
(D.C. Cir. 2022); Texas v. Biden, 554 F. Supp. 3d 818 (N.D. Tex. 2021), rev’d, 597 U.S. 785 (2022); Arizona v. Biden,
593 F. Supp. 3d 676 (S.D. Ohio 2022), rev’d, 40 F.4th 375 (6th Cir. 2022).
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as to the scope of injunctive relief.124 As noted, as of March 2025, appeals remain pending in a
number of cases in which nationwide injunctions were issued under the Biden Administration.
Considerations for Congress
Congress has significant ability to legislate with respect to nationwide injunctions as part of its
broad constitutional authority to regulate the federal courts.125 The data in this CRS report may
help inform the legal and policy debate around nationwide injunctions in several areas, though
there are also some areas that may benefit from analysis beyond the scope of this report.
Number of Nationwide Injunctions
This CRS report builds on several other sources that have tried to identify and count nationwide
injunctions. A February 2020 address by a DOJ official identified 12 nationwide injunctions
issued during the presidency of George W. Bush, 19 issued during Barack Obama’s presidency,
and 55 against the Trump Administration up to that point.126 The April 2024 Harvard Law Review
article identified six nationwide injunctions issued under the George W. Bush Administration, 12
under the Obama Administration, 64 under the Trump Administration, and 14 from the first three
years of the Biden Administration.127 This report now identifies 86 nationwide injunction cases
under the first Trump Administration and 28 under the Biden Administration. The numbers in
each of these sources vary, likely due to differences in the methodologies used to identify and
count nationwide injunctions. However, they all fit the same general trend: It appears that
nationwide injunctions increased during each presidential Administration from George W. Bush
to Donald Trump’s first term in office. Under President Biden, the number of nationwide
injunctions decreased significantly from the Trump Administration but remained higher than the
total under any previous presidential Administration.128
The reasons for the decrease in the frequency of nationwide injunctions during the Biden
Administration is unclear. While the decrease might be due in part to the nature of the particular
policies pursued by the Biden Administration and the legal challenges brought against them,129 it
might also be caused in part by more general shifts in how courts handle requests for universal
relief. In a number of recent cases, courts considering requests for nationwide injunctions in
challenges to agency action under the APA have instead elected to stay or vacate the challenged
agency action.130 Those cases are generally not included in CRS’s count of nationwide injunctions
124 See Louisiana v. Biden, 543 F. Supp. 3d 388 (W.D. La. 2021), vacated, 45 F.4th 841 (5th Cir. 2022); Texas v.
United States, 549 F. Supp. 3d 572 (S.D. Tex. 2021), aff’d in part, vacated in part, remanded, 50 F.4th 498 (5th Cir.
2022), and supplemented, No. 1:18-CV-00068, 2023 WL 5950808 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 13, 2023), and aff’d in part,
modified in part, 126 F.4th 392 (5th Cir. 2025); Georgia v. Biden, 574 F. Supp. 3d 1337 (S.D. Ga. 2021), aff’d in part,
vacated in part sub nom. Georgia v. President of the United States, 46 F.4th 1283 (11th Cir. 2022); Braidwood Mgmt.,
Inc. v. Becerra, 666 F. Supp. 3d 613 (N.D. Tex. 2023), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, 104 F.4th 930 (9th Cir. 2024), cert.
denied, No. 24-475, 2025 WL 76462 (U.S. Jan. 13, 2025).
125 See generally Cong. Rsch. Serv., Overview of Establishment of Article III Courts, CONSTITUTION
ANNOTATED, https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S1-8-1/ALDE_00013557 (last visited Feb. 7, 2025).
126 Jeffrey A. Rosen, Deputy Att’y General, Address at the Administrative Conference of the United States Forum on
Nationwide Injunctions and Federal Regulatory Programs (Feb. 12, 2020).
127 District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1705.
128 Cf. id. at 1702 (“nationwide injunctions have indeed grown much more common, dramatically spiking during the
Trump Administration before decreasing during the Biden Administration.”).
129 See, e.g., id.
130 See, e.g., All. for Hippocratic Med. v. FDA, 668 F. Supp. 3d 507, 559–60 (N.D. Tex. 2023).
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but also have the effect of halting a challenged policy in its entirety.131 Additional study may be
warranted on the extent to which courts are preventing the enforcement of federal policy through
stays or vacatur rather than injunctions.132
It remains to be seen how many nationwide injunctions will issue under the second Trump
Administration. As of March 2025, multiple district courts had issued nationwide injunctions
against policies of the second Trump Administration.133 Additional data from the current
Administration may help clarify any trends in the issuance of nationwide injunctions. As noted
above, there is currently no way to automatically identify nationwide injunction cases.134 If
Congress enacted a statute or rule of procedure governing nationwide injunctions, observers
might be able to identify nationwide injunctions by searching for cases that cite the statute or
rule.135 Congress could also direct the courts or a federal agency to provide reports to Congress on
the issuance of nationwide injunctions.136
Regulating Nationwide Injunction Cases by Subject Matter
Some discussion of nationwide injunctions focuses on whether non-party relief is appropriate in
particular contexts such as immigration,137 environmental regulation,138 and certain civil rights
cases, as all of these are areas where it may be difficult to tailor relief to the parties before the
court.139
131 The editors of the Harvard Law Review also excluded vacatur from their count of nationwide injunctions. See
District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1712–13.
132 For additional discussion of APA litigation, see infra “Nationwide Injunctions and APA Litigation.”
133 E.g., Washington v. Trump, No. C25-0127-JCC, __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2025 WL 272198 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 23, 2025);
CASA, Inc. v. Trump, No. DLB-25-201, __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2025 WL 408636 (D. Md. Feb. 5, 2025); Nat’l Council of
Nonprofits v. Off. of Mgmt. & Budget, No. 25-239, __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2025 WL 368852 (D.D.C. Feb. 3, 2025).
134 See supra “Searching for Nationwide Injunctions.”
135 For discussion of Congress’s power to regulate court procedures, see CRS In Focus IF11557, Congress, the
Judiciary, and Civil and Criminal Procedure, by Joanna R. Lampe (2020).
136 See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 2266 (requiring the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) to submit reports
to Congress on courts’ compliance with time limits for ruling on certain habeas petitions and requiring courts to
provide certain information to ACUS for inclusion in such reports); John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management,
and Recreation Act, Pub. L. No. 116-9, § 4201, 133 Stat. 762 (2019) (requiring ACUS to submit reports to Congress on
fee awards under the Equal Access to Justice Act).
137 See infra notes 143–150 and accompanying text.
138 E.g., Wyoming v. Dep’t of Agric., No. 07-CV-017-B, 2009 WL 10670655, at *2 (D. Wyo. June 15, 2009) (holding,
in case challenging a rule limiting road construction in roadless areas in national forests, “Limiting the scope of the
injunction to Wyoming ... would be illogical. The Rule was enacted and enforced on a nationwide basis. It was not
tailored to address the forests of each state as separate entities. It would make little sense, then, to tailor the remedy by
limiting the injunction to the State of Wyoming. If the Rule is illegal, as this Court has found it to be, then it is illegal
nationwide, just as it was enforced nationwide.”). But see Colorado v. EPA, 445 F. Supp. 3d 1295, 1300, 1313 n.12 (D.
Colo. 2020), rev’d 989 F.3d 874 (10th Cir. 2021) (noting, in challenge to subsequent “waters of the United States” rule,
“Colorado does not seek a nationwide injunction ... , presumably because Colorado is downstream of no other state, so
it is difficult for Colorado to argue that implementation of the New Rule elsewhere affects Colorado.”). Compare Frost,
supra note 4, at 1094 (“[I]t would be difficult to craft injunctive relief limited to the plaintiff alone, or to a single
geographic region, in cases involving easily dispersed or mobile items, such as cases concerning endangered species or
the safety of food or medical devices.”), with Rule by District Judge, supra note 3, at 7 (statement of Prof. Nicholas
Bagley) (citing environmental litigation as an example of an area where nationwide injunctions can cause significant
disruption and uncertainty if injunctions stop and start as a case is on appeal or if multiple rounds of regulation are
enjoined).
139 For instance, some courts have held that in desegregation cases, a court order requiring a segregated facility to admit
a single plaintiff does not fully resolve the issues presented or provide the plaintiff with the full benefit of attending an
integrated facility. See, e.g., Morley, supra note 30, at 491 n.15.
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The data in this report indicate that immigration cases make up a relatively large share of
nationwide injunction cases. As noted above, immigration was the most common issue in
nationwide injunction cases under both the first Trump Administration and the Biden
Administration.140 Immigration cases and federal funding cases that implicated immigration
policy collectively accounted for more than half of all nationwide injunction cases under the
Trump Administration. Under the Biden Administration, immigration cases accounted for 28.6%
of nationwide injunction cases. Policymakers may therefore wish to consider whether these cases
present unique legal and policy considerations.
Some commentators contend that nationwide injunctions may be more likely to be appropriate in
immigration cases because more limited injunctions may not afford complete relief to the
parties.141 With respect to challenged policies that exclude foreign nationals, some assert that
immigration restrictions may affect certain stakeholders in ways that make it difficult to target
relief.142 For instance, a university may benefit from the academic, professional, and financial
contributions of an indeterminate class of international students, faculty, and staff.143 Immigration
policies that bar individuals from entering the country may also create a large class of people who
are affected by an allegedly illegal policy but unable as a practical matter to challenge it in
court.144 With respect to policies that allow foreign nationals to enter or remain in the country,
because people can move freely within the United States once admitted, some courts and
commentators assert that piecemeal injunctions of such immigration policies may afford no
meaningful relief to states or other parties who seek to prevent illegal entry.145 States may allege
economic consequences from certain foreign nationals’ exclusion from or continued presence
within the United States and may contend that these harms warrant universal relief.146 In 2023,
the Supreme Court in United States v. Texas recognized constitutional limits to states’ ability to
challenge certain immigration policies, including changes in immigration enforcement priorities
related to the arrest and removal of aliens who have committed immigration violations.147
Some courts granting or affirming nationwide injunctions in this area have pointed to a provision
of Article I of the Constitution that empowers Congress to “establish an uniform Rule of
Naturalization.”148 Some commentators disagree with that reasoning.149 Some argue for reforms
140 See supra “Subject Matter of Nationwide Injunction Cases.”
141 See, e.g., Frost, supra note 4, at 1091.
142 See id.
143 E.g., Washington v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151, 1159–60 (9th Cir. 2017).
144 See, e.g., Frost, supra note 4, at 1094–97.
145 Cass, supra note 32, at 39–40. See also Texas v. United States, 787 F.3d 733, 769 (5th Cir. 2015) (“[T]here is a
substantial likelihood that a partial injunction would be ineffective because DAPA beneficiaries would be free to move
between states.”).
146
E.g., Brief for Respondent at 77, Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667 (2018); Texas, 787 F.3d at 768.
147 599 U.S. 670, 676-78 (2023). The Court cautioned that while states generally lack standing to bring cases
challenging the executive branch’s alleged failure to make more immigration arrests, there could be specific instances
where states could bring a cognizable claim, and the Court took no position on whether a state could challenge a policy
that coupled a change in enforcement priorities with the provision of legal benefits or status to a category of removable
aliens. Id. at 682-83.
148 U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 4. See also Texas v. United States, 809 F.3d 134, 187–88 (5th Cir. 2015), Washington v.
Trump, 847 F.3d at 1166–67.
149 See, e.g., Samuel Bray, National Injunction Case Added to the Court’s Docket, VOLOKH CONSPIRACY (Oct. 19,
2020, 10:27 AM), https://reason.com/volokh/2020/10/19/national-injunction-case-added-to-the-courts-docket/; Frost,
supra note 4, at 1103.
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that would impose limits on nationwide injunctions specifically in the context of immigration
cases.150
With respect to the other specific categories of cases identified by commentators, environmental
and civil rights cases did not make up a large proportion of nationwide injunction cases under the
Trump and Biden Administrations. Congress could still consider targeted reforms to nationwide
injunctions in those areas, but if trends from the past two Administrations continue, such reforms
might affect a small number of cases.
Nationwide Injunctions and Forum Shopping
Forum shopping refers to the practice whereby some plaintiffs seek to litigate in a court that they
believe is more likely to rule favorably on their claims.151 Forum shopping is not a new practice—
parties have long sought possible advantages during litigation, including seeking to obtain a
favorable decisionmaker to the extent possible.152 The phrase forum shopping may carry a
negative connotation, but some commentators defend forum shopping or downplay concerns
around it, noting that it may be difficult to draw the line between generally accepted litigation
strategy and practices warranting concern.153
In some cases, a plaintiff may attempt to select not only the court in which their claims proceed
but also the specific judge who will hear the case, a practice sometimes called judge shopping.154
The structure and composition of some federal judicial districts may facilitate judge shopping. A
number of federal district courts are subdivided into geographic divisions, and some divisions
have only one or two active judges, so a plaintiff who sues in one of those divisions has a high
likelihood of being able to proceed before their judge of choice. In recent years, some observers
have expressed concerns that litigants challenging government actions were filing suit in those
divisions in an attempt to judge shop.155
150 Madison J. Scaggs, Note, How Nationwide Injunctions Have Thwarted Recent Immigration Policy, 105 IOWA L.
REV. 1447, 1469–73 (2020). There are some statutory bars to injunctive relief in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f).
151 See, e.g., Forum-shopping, supra note 20.
152 See, e.g., Josh Blackman, Forum Shopping is Rational, VOLOKH CONSPIRACY (Mar. 5, 2020, 6:59 PM),
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/03/05/forum-shopping-in-rational/; Patrick Mullinger, The Mall of Litigation: The
Dangers and Benefits of Forum Shopping in American Jurisprudence, U. CIN. L. REV. BLOG (Nov. 17, 2021),
https://uclawreview.org/2021/11/17/the-mall-of-litigation-the-dangers-and-benefits-of-forum-shopping-in-americanjurisprudence. An analogous practice is jury selection, in which litigants routinely seek the most favorable possible
panel. See CRS Report R47259, Batson v. Kentucky and Federal Peremptory Challenge Law, by Peter G. Berris
(2022).
153 See, e.g., Mary Garvey Algero, In Defense of Forum Shopping: A Realistic Look at Selecting a Venue, 78 NEB. L.
REV. 79 (1999); Rule by District Judge, supra note 3 (statement of Loren AliKhan, Solicitor General of the District of
Columbia); The Role and Impact of Nationwide Injunctions by District Courts: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on
the Judiciary, Subcomm. on Courts, Intellectual Prop., & the Internet, 115th Cong. 9 (2017) (statement of Amanda
Frost, Prof. of Law, American University Washington College of Law).
154 See, e.g., Welk v. GMAC Mortg., LLC, 720 F.3d 736, 738 (8th Cir. 2013).
155 See, e.g., Steve Vladeck, Texas Judge’s Covid Mandate Ruling Exposes Federal ‘Judge-shopping’ Problem,
MSNBC (Jan. 11, 2022, 6:33 PM), https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/texas-judge-s-covid-mandate-ruling-exposesfederal-judge-shopping-n1287324; Emma Platoff, By Gutting Obamacare, Judge Reed O’Connor Handed Texas a Win.
It Wasn’t the First Time., TEX. TRIBUNE (Dec. 19, 2018, 2:00 PM), https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/19/reedoconnor-federal-judge-texas-obamacare-forum-shopping-ken-paxton/.
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Forum shopping is relatively common in certain types of cases, including patent litigation and
suits against the federal government.156 While forum shopping is not limited to nationwide
injunction cases, the possibility that a court may enter a nationwide injunction raises the stakes in
forum selection. If a court blocks a policy with respect to the plaintiff only, the government may
still be able to implement the policy with respect to most people. On the other hand, if a court
blocks a law or policy in its entirety, the government must litigate the case, often on an
emergency basis, before it can effectively pursue its policy goals.
Nationwide injunctions and forum shopping have featured in recent public discussion of
perceived politicization of the federal courts. Concerns about politicization relate to forum
shopping because some observers contend that many recent cases challenging high-profile
policies of a presidential Administration from one major political party proceeded before judges
appointed by Presidents from another party.157 Some of those cases were filed in districts or
divisions that offered plaintiffs a high chance of assignment to certain judges. The perception that
parties can pick a certain court or judge and potentially secure a more favorable case outcome
may increase the perception of politicization of the judiciary. This notion undermines the
portrayal of judges as independent, nonpartisan actors who apply the law neutrally.158
The data in this report appear to show a relationship between nationwide injunctions and forum
shopping, though it is difficult to distinguish cause from effect. Under the first Trump
Administration, district courts in California issued significantly more nationwide injunctions than
did district courts in any other state. Under the Biden Administration, district courts in Texas
issued a substantial plurality of nationwide injunctions.
The judiciary is traditionally viewed as the non-political branch of the federal government, and
there are issues that come before the courts that cannot easily be mapped to partisan political
divisions.159 To the extent different judges approach cases differently, the jurisdiction in which a
judge sits or the political party of the President who appointed the judge are not necessarily
predictive of the judge’s judicial philosophy, and CRS has not attempted to evaluate the ideology
of judges who issued nationwide injunctions.160 Moreover, as noted, many factors may influence
where a suit proceeds, and the fact that certain courts issued a relatively large number of
nationwide injunctions does not necessarily mean that those courts are more likely than others to
issue nationwide injunctions in any particular case or that the courts are deciding cases on
partisan grounds. Nonetheless, the geographic distribution of nationwide injunction cases may
aggravate concerns about politicization of the courts.161
156 With respect to patent litigation, see, e.g., J. Jonas Anderson, Online Symposium: Extreme Forum Shopping in
Patent Law, FEDCIRCUITBLOG (Feb. 14, 2022), https://fedcircuitblog.com/2022/02/14/online-symposium-extremeforum-shopping-in-patent-law/. A 2017 Supreme Court decision imposed some limits on forum shopping in patent
cases by narrowly construing the applicable venue statute. TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Grp., 581 U.S. 258
(2017).
157 See, e.g., District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1705, 1707 (analyzing nationwide injunctions based on the
political party of the President who appointed the issuing judge and concluding that nationwide injunctions are
“overwhelmingly issued by judges appointed by a President from the opposite political party as the President who
promulgated the policy at issue”).
158 See, e.g., Cass, supra note 32, at 27.
159 See, e.g., THE FEDERALIST NO. 79 (Alexander Hamilton).
160 Cf. District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1705 (analyzing nationwide injunctions issued by the political party of
the President who appointed the issuing judge).
161 See, e.g., id. at 1702–03 (“this Chapter notes the increasing risk of politicizing the nationwide injunction and
delegitimizing the courts, as plaintiffs proceed to cherry-pick judges to increase the likelihood of political outcomes or
policy goals. Ultimately, in light of this danger, this Chapter calls for reform to restructure the court system to
(continued...)
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Multiple recent proposals have sought to address forum shopping generally or to curb the practice
in nationwide injunction cases specifically. In March 2024, the Judicial Conference of the United
States announced new guidance for district court case assignments designed to “strengthen[ ] the
policy governing random case assignment, limiting the ability of litigants to effectively choose
judges in certain cases by where they file a lawsuit.”162 The guidance is not binding on district
courts, and at least one district court that has featured prominently in discussion of forum
shopping has declined to adopt it.163 If Congress wished to make the Judicial Conference policy
binding on federal district courts, change the scope of the policy to apply to a different class of
cases, or impose a different rule for case assignments, it could do so via legislation.
Another option would be to cap the probability that plaintiffs filing in a certain division are
assigned to any particular judge—for example, at one in two or one in three.164 That change could
be accomplished by restructuring existing judicial divisions to eliminate those with one or two
active judges or by assigning some cases to judges in other divisions within a district. The courts
or Congress could also tighten venue restrictions by requiring each case “to be connected to not
just the district in which it is filed, but to the division in which it is filed, if the district is divided
into divisions.”165 With respect to nationwide injunction cases specifically, some have proposed
requiring all suits seeking nationwide injunctions to be brought in a particular forum, such as the
federal courts in the District of Columbia.166
Substantive and Procedural Limits on Nationwide Injunctions
Some commentators and lawmakers who oppose nationwide injunctions or think such injunctions
issue too frequently have advocated for legislation that would limit nationwide injunctions or
regulate how courts analyze requests for non-party relief. Some of these proposals take the form
of substantive requirements that would govern whether or when nationwide injunctions could
issue. Others would impose special litigation procedures in cases involving nationwide
injunctions.
disincentivize forum shopping.”); Steve Vladeck, 18. The Growing Abuse of Single-Judge Divisions, ONE FIRST (Mar.
13, 2023), https://stevevladeck.substack.com/p/18-shopping-for-judges.
162 Memorandum from the Comm. On Ct. Admin. and Case Mgmt. of the Jud. Conf. of the U.S. to Judges, U.S. Dist.
Cts. (Mar. 15, 2024), https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-03-15-Memo.pdf.
163 See Letter from David C. Godbey, Chief Judge, U.S. Dist. Ct. for the N. Dist, of Tex. to Sen. Charles E. Schumer
(Mar. 29, 2024), https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/chief_judge_godbey_judge_shopping_letter.pdf.
164 See, e.g., End Judge Shopping Act of 2023, H.R. 3163, 118th Cong. (2023) (“A civil action which seeks an order
enforceable in each district and division of the United States shall be brought only in a division of a judicial district
which has two or more active judges assigned.”). See also Vladeck, supra note 155.
165 J. Jonas Anderson & Paul R. Gugliuzza, Federal Judge Seeks Patent Cases, 71 DUKE L.J. 419, 480 (2021).
166 Stop Judge Shopping Act, S. 1265, 118th Cong. (2023) (“The United States District Court for the District of
Columbia shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction over any civil action for declaratory or injunctive relief
(including a nationwide injunction, stay, vacatur, or any other relief with similar nationwide force and effect) against
the enforcement of any Federal law (including regulations and Executive orders) if the relief extends beyond the parties
to the civil action.”). Cf. Restoring Judicial Separation of Powers Act, H.R. 642, 118th Cong. (2023) (“Whenever any
action before a court of the United States seeks injunctive relief restraining the enforcement of any Federal statute,
regulation, or order against a nonparty, the court shall, upon a motion of a party to the action made not later than 30
days after an initial filing requesting such relief, transfer such action to the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit.”). See also Bradford Mank & Michael E. Solimine, State Standing and National
Injunctions, 94 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1955, 1978–80 (2019). Forum shopping concerns are not limited to nationwide
injunction cases. See, e.g., Stop Helping Outcome Preferences Act, S. 4095, 118th Cong. (2024) (seeking to penalize
judge shopping, defined as “attempting to interfere with a court’s case assignment process for the purpose of
influencing the assignment of a particular judge to preside over a particular case,” and to limit venue shopping in
bankruptcy and patent cases).
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Substantively, there is currently no statute or Supreme Court case that lays out a specific test for
when a nationwide injunction should issue, though there is Supreme Court caselaw setting
general standards for the issuance of injunctive relief.167 Some commentators have called on the
courts or Congress to impose specific requirements before a nationwide injunction can issue.168
Several federal appeals courts have sought to impose limits on nationwide injunctions.169 Some
legislative proposals have sought to ban nationwide injunctions at the district court level170 or in
all federal courts.171 Some legislators and commentators have advocated for limiting the scope of
injunctive relief to a single judicial circuit or a single state.172
Procedurally, commentators have raised concerns that nationwide injunctions may undermine the
courts’ ability to issue carefully considered decisions because they lead to fast-tracked emergency
litigation on issues of major national importance.173 Some contend that nationwide injunctions
discourage percolation—the process by which multiple federal courts may consider the same
legal issue and potentially reach different conclusions.174 Some also raise the prospect of
conflicting injunctions, where different courts impose incompatible requirements on the
government, though others note that this is rare in practice.175
Commentators and lawmakers have proposed a number of reforms designed to regulate, and
usually to limit, nationwide injunctions. In addition to the proposals related to forum selection
discussed above,176 one proposal would send any request for a nationwide injunction to a threejudge district court rather than the usual single district judge.177 One would require specialized
hearings on requests for nationwide injunctions.178 Another would provide for direct Supreme
Court review of any nationwide injunction.179
Lawmakers considering the foregoing proposals might look to the nationwide injunctions
identified in this report to consider how proposed legislation might have applied to past cases. If
167 See Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008); Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009);
Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 702 (1979).
168 See, e.g., Alan M. Trammell, Demystifying Nationwide Injunctions, 98 TEX. L. REV. 67, 103–04, 108 (2019); Zayn
Siddique, Nationwide Injunctions, 117 COLUM. L. REV. 2095, 2141–42 (2017).
169 See District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1719 n.127–132.
170 Nationwide Injunction Abuse Prevention Act of 2019, H.R. 4292, 116th Cong. (2019). See also Sam Heavenrich, An
Appellate Solution to Nationwide Injunctions, 96 IND. L.J. SUPP. 1, 3 (2020).
171 Injunctive Authority Clarification Act of 2021, H.R. 43, 117th Cong. (2021).
172 See, e.g., Stop Helping Outcome Preferences Act, S. 4095, 118th Cong. (2024); Getzel Berger, Note, Nationwide
Injunctions Against the Federal Government: A Structural Approach, 92 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1068, 1100 (2017); Joseph D.
Kmak, Comment, Abusing the Judicial Power: A Geographic Approach to Address Nationwide Injunctions and State
Standing, 70 EMORY L.J. 1325, 1363 (2021).
173 See, e.g., Bray, supra note 3, at 461–62; Frost, supra note 4, at 1108. For discussion of emergency litigation at the
Supreme Court, see “Motions Practice: The ‘Shadow Docket,’” in CRS Report R47382, Congressional Control over
the Supreme Court, by Joanna R. Lampe (2023).
174 See, e.g., Williams, supra note 33, at 318; Frost, supra note 4, at 1108.
175 E.g., Morley, supra note 30, at 504–05. Cf. DHS v. New York, 140 S. Ct. 599, 600 (2020) (Gorsuch, J., concurring)
(“[T]he routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government,
courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.”). But see Bert I. Huang, Coordinating Injunctions, 98
TEX. L. REV. 1331, 1332 n.11 (2020).
176 See supra “Nationwide Injunctions and Forum Shopping.”
177 Gregg Costa, An Old Solution to the Nationwide Injunction Problem, HARV. L. REV. BLOG (Jan. 25,
2018), https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2018/01/an-old-solution-to-the-nationwide-injunction-problem/.
178 Milan D. Smith, Jr., Only Where Justified: Toward Limits and Explanatory Requirements for Nationwide
Injunctions, 95 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 2013, 2036 (2020).
179 Court Shopping Deterrence Act, H.R. 893, 117th Cong. (2021).
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such legislation were enacted in the future, the data in this report and other sources could also
provide a benchmark to help determine whether the legislation changed the frequency, geographic
distribution, procedural posture, or outcome on appeal of nationwide injunction cases.
One specific concern that some commentators have raised with respect to nationwide injunctions
is that they can lead to uncertainty or disruption if challenged government policies stop and start
at different levels of judicial review—for example, if a district court enjoins a policy, then an
appeals court lifts the injunction, then the Supreme Court reimposes it.180 Much of the possible
instability in this area comes from emergency litigation around stays of court decisions pending
appellate review, which are not included in this report’s analysis. While stays may cause
instability as some commentators posit, they can also serve to limit disruption. For instance, a
court may enter an injunction but stay its own order in whole or in part pending appeal, leaving
some or all of the challenged government policy in effect continuously during the litigation
despite the injunction.181 This use of stays has led one commentator to argue for a presumption in
favor of staying the effectiveness of a nationwide injunction or vacatur pending any appeal.182
Additional review would be required to determine the extent to which nationwide injunction
litigation causes the government to halt and restart policies while litigation is pending.
Nationwide Injunctions and APA Litigation
Another area that has generated significant legal commentary in recent years is the role of
nationwide injunctions in litigation under the APA.183 The APA establishes the procedures that
federal agencies use for rulemakings and adjudications and sets out procedures for how courts
may review those agency actions.184 One provision of the APA (5 U.S.C. § 705) authorizes a court
reviewing agency action, “[o]n such conditions as may be required and to the extent necessary to
prevent irreparable injury,” to “issue all necessary and appropriate process to postpone the
effective date of an agency action or to preserve status or rights pending conclusion of the review
proceedings.”185 Another provision (5 U.S.C. § 706) authorizes a court reviewing agency action to
“hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions” if, among other things, it
finds them to be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with
law.”186
Courts considering challenges to agency actions often rely on § 706 to vacate and set aside
agency actions found to be unlawful.187 While courts routinely invoke this authority to vacate
challenged policies in their entirety,188 some legal commentators debate whether § 706 is properly
interpreted to authorize this type of universal vacatur of agency action or whether, when possible,
180 See, e.g., Rule by District Judge, supra note 3, at 7 (statement of Prof. Nicholas Bagley).
181 See, e.g., City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sessions, 372 F. Supp. 3d 928, 954 (N.D. Cal. 2019).
182 Ronald M. Levin, Vacatur, Nationwide Injunctions, and the Evolving APA, 98 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1997, 2027
(2023).
183 5 U.S.C. §§ 500–504.
184 See CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10558, Judicial Review Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), by Jonathan M.
Gaffney (2024).
185 5 U.S.C. § 705.
186 Id. § 706.
187 See John Harrison, Vactur of Rules Under the Administrative Procedure Act, 40 YALE J. REG. BULL. 119, 121–23
(2023).
188 See, e.g., Harmon v. Thornburgh, 878 F.2d 484, 495 n.21 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (“When a reviewing court determines
that agency regulations are unlawful, the ordinary result is that the rules are vacated—not that their application to the
individual petitioners is proscribed.”). See also Levin, supra note 182, at 1999–2000.
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relief should be tailored to the parties.189 There is further debate among courts and commentators
over what remedies are appropriate to preserve the status quo while an APA case remains
pending. Some courts and commentators reason that nationwide injunctions are appropriate in
APA cases because § 706 provides for vacatur of agency action in its entirety, not only as to
parties who challenge the action.190 Some read § 705 to authorize courts to stay agency action
pending judicial review.191 Such a stay, essentially a temporary analog to vacatur under § 706, is
sometimes viewed as a less extreme remedy than injunctive relief because a stay pauses the
policy itself while an injunction directly requires the government to take or not take some
action.192 Some courts have applied that reasoning and entered stays rather than TROs or PIs in
APA cases.193 On the other hand, courts sometimes stay agency actions pending judicial review
and also enter TROs or PIs.194
When a court stays agency action pending review under § 705 but does not also grant injunctive
relief, such a ruling falls outside the definition of nationwide injunction used by this report.195
However, a stay has the same practical effect as a nationwide injunction: It renders the challenged
policy entirely unenforceable.196 Some commentators have posited that courts may grant stays
rather than injunctions in order to avoid controversy around nationwide injunctions.197 Others
have raised concerns that reforms targeting nationwide injunctions but not stays of agency action
may not fully address policy issues related to nationwide injunctions.198
Because this report did not attempt to identify all cases in which agency action was stayed under
§ 705 of the APA, additional research may be warranted on such cases to better understand the
scope of the issue. In the meantime, lawmakers considering reforms related to nationwide
injunctions may consider whether and how such reforms would also apply to stays under § 705.
Congress could also consider targeted amendments to the APA.
189 Compare, e.g., Aditya Bamzai, The Path of Administrative Law Remedies, 98 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 2037 (2023)
with Mila Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 YALE L.J. 2304 (2024).
190 E.g., Mila Sohoni, The Power to Vacate a Rule, 88 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1121, 1123 (2020); Christopher J.
Walker, Quick Reaction to Bray’s Argument that the APA Does Not Support Nationwide Injunctions, YALE J. REG.,
NOTICE & COMMENT (May 8, 2018), https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/quick-reaction-to-brays-argument-that-the-apa-doesnot-support-nationwide-injunctions/.
191 See, e.g., All. for Hippocratic Med. v. FDA, 668 F. Supp. 3d 507, 559–60 (N.D. Tex. 2023).
192 See, e.g., id. at 560. See also Texas v. United States, 40 F.4th 205, 219 (5th Cir. 2022); Harrison, supra note 187, at
119–20.
193 See, e.g., All. for Hippocratic Med., 668 F. Supp. 3d at 559–60.
194 See, e.g., Rural & Migrant Ministry v. EPA, 510 F. Supp. 3d 138 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) (granting a “stay and restraining
order”).
195 See supra “Defining Nationwide Injunctions.”
196 See, e.g., Levin, supra note 182, at 1999.
197 See District Court Reform, supra note 9, at 1706–07 (stating that the decrease in nationwide injunctions under the
Biden Administration as compared to the first Trump Administration may reflect “judicial responsiveness to growing
criticism of the nationwide injunction, or the replacement of some injunctions with the ‘lesser remedy’ of vacatur”)
(footnotes omitted).
198 See, e.g., id. at 1720–21. Cf. Frank Chang, The Administrative Procedure Act’s Stay Provision: Bypassing Scylla
and Charybdis of Preliminary Injunctions, 85 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1529, 1551 (2017) (stating that the use of vacatur
instead of injunctive relief does not resolve some of the policy concerns related to nationwide injunctions).
Congressional Research Service
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Appendix. Tables of Nationwide Injunctions
The following tables contain lists of nationwide injunctions issued during the first Trump
Administration and the Biden Administration. CRS identified these cases using the methodology
outlined above.199 CRS has listed nationwide injunctions by case, meaning that some table entries
include multiple court orders and some government actions appear in the table more than once if
they were challenged in multiple cases.200 The Caption column in each table contains a citation to
the first nationwide injunction that CRS identified in each case. Cases are listed in chronological
order based on the date of issuance of the first decision cited. Any additional nationwide
injunctions that issued in each case are included in the Notes column. The Notes column also
briefly identifies the government action subject to each nationwide injunction. In some cases,
only a part of a regulation, executive order, or other federal policy was enjoined, but in each case
enforcement of the enjoined portion of the challenged action was barred as to all relevant persons
or entities.
Table A-1. Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration
Caption
Topic
Notes
1
Dialysis Patient Citizens v. Burwell, No.
4:17-CV-16, 2017 WL 365271 (E.D. Tex.
Jan. 25, 2017)201
Health Care
PI against regulation of Medicarecertified dialysis facilities
2
Darweesh v. Trump, No. 17 Civ. 480,
2017 WL 388504 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 28,
2017)
Immigration
PI barring removal of individuals from
Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya,
Somalia, and Yemen legally
authorized to enter the United
States following the issuance of Exec.
Order No. 13,769, Protecting the
Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry
into the United States
3
Washington v. Trump, No. C170141JLR, 2017 WL 462040 (W.D. Wash.
Feb. 3, 2017)
Immigration
TRO against Exec. Order No.
13,769, Protecting the Nation from
Foreign Terrorist Entry into the
United States
4
Int’l Refugee Assistance Project v.
Trump, 241 F. Supp. 3d 539 (D. Md.
2017), aff’d in part, vacated in part, 857
F.3d 554 (4th Cir. 2017), as
amended (May 31, 2017), as
amended (June 15, 2017), vacated as
moot, 583 U.S. 912 (2017) (Mem)
Immigration
PI against Exec. Order No. 13,780,
Protecting the Nation from Foreign
Terrorist Entry into the United
States; PI against Presidential
Proclamation No. 9645, Enhancing
Vetting Capabilities and Processes
for Detecting Attempted Entry Into
the United States by Terrorists or
Other Public-Safety Threats entered
265 F. Supp. 3d 570 (D. Md.
2017), aff’d, 883 F.3d 233 (4th Cir.
2018), as amended (Feb. 28,
2018), cert. granted, vacated, 585 U.S.
1028 (2018)
199 See supra “Identifying Nationwide Injunctions: Methodology.”
200 See supra “Counting Nationwide Injunctions.”
201 A TRO in this case was issued before the beginning of the first Trump Administration. Order Granting Emergency
Motion for Temporary Restraining Order, No. 4:17-CV-16 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 12, 2017).
Congressional Research Service
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Caption
Topic
Notes
5
Hawai’i v. Trump, 241 F. Supp. 3d 1119
(D. Haw. 2017)
Immigration
TRO against Exec. Order No.
13,780, Protecting the Nation from
Foreign Terrorist Entry into the
United States; PI entered, Hawai’i v.
Trump, 245 F. Supp. 3d 1227 (D.
Haw. 2017), aff’d in part, vacated in
part, remanded, 859 F.3d 741 (9th
Cir. 2017), vacated as moot, 583 U.S.
941 (2017)
6
Cnty. of Santa Clara v. Trump, 250 F.
Supp. 3d 497 (N.D. Cal. 2017)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
PI against Exec. Order No. 13,768,
Enhancing Public Safety in the
Interior of the United States;
permanent injunction entered, Cnty.
of Santa Clara v. Trump, 275 F. Supp.
3d 1196 (N.D. Cal 2017), aff’d in
part, vacated in part, remanded sub
nom. City and Cnty. of San Francisco
v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir.
2018)
7
Hamama v. Adducci, 261 F. Supp. 3d 820
(E.D. Mich. 2017), vacated and
remanded, 912 F.3d 869 (6th Cir. 2018)
Immigration
PI against removal of Iraqi nationals
with outstanding removal orders as
of June 24, 2017
8
Nw. Immigrant Rts. Project v. Sessions,
No. C17-716 RAJ, 2017 WL 3189032
(W.D. Wash. July 27, 2017)
Immigration
PI against Executive Office of
Immigration Review (EOIR) rules
regulating the professional conduct
of attorneys who appear in
immigration proceedings
9
City of Chicago v. Sessions, 264 F. Supp.
3d 933 (N.D. Ill. 2017), aff’d, 888 F.3d
272 (7th Cir. 2018), reh’g en banc granted
in part, vacated in part, No. 17-2991,
2018 WL 4268817 (7th Cir. June 4,
2018), vacated, No. 17-2991, 2018 WL
4268814 (7th Cir. Aug. 10, 2018)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
PI against enforcement of funding
limitations against “sanctuary”
jurisdictions that do not provide
certain information to immigration
authorities regarding aliens in those
jurisdictions’ custody; permanent
injunction entered, City of Chicago v.
Sessions, 321 F. Supp. 3d 855 (N.D.
Ill. 2018), aff’d and remanded sub nom.
City of Chicago v. Barr, 957 F.3d 772
(7th Cir. 2020), opinion amended and
superseded, 961 F.3d 882 (7th Cir.
2020), and aff’d, 961 F.3d 882 (7th
Cir. 2020)
10
Hawai’i v. Trump, 265 F. Supp. 3d 1140
(D. Haw. 2017), aff’d in part, vacated in
part, 878 F.3d 662 (9th Cir.
2017), rev’d, 585 U.S. 667 (2018)
Immigration
TRO against Presidential
Proclamation No. 9645, Enhancing
Vetting Capabilities and Processes
for Detecting Attempted Entry Into
the United States by Terrorists or
Other Public-Safety Threats; PI
entered, Order Granting Motion for
Preliminary Injunction, Hawai’i v.
Trump, 265 F. Supp. 3d 1140 (D.
Haw. 2017) (No. 1:17-CV-00050)
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Caption
Topic
Notes
11
Doe 1 v. Trump, 275 F. Supp. 3d 167
(D.D.C. 2017), vacated sub nom. Doe 2 v.
Shanahan, 755 F. App’x 19 (D.C. Cir.
2019) (unpublished)
Military
PI against Memorandum from Donald
Trump for the Secretary of Defense
and the Secretary of Homeland
Security on Military Service by
Transgender Individuals (Aug. 25,
2017)
12
Stone v. Trump, 280 F. Supp. 3d 747 (D.
Md. 2017)
Military
PI against Memorandum from Donald
Trump for the Secretary of Defense
and the Secretary of Homeland
Security on Military Service by
Transgender Individuals (Aug. 25,
2017)
13
Karnoski v. Trump, No. C17-1297-MJP,
2017 WL 6311305 (W.D. Wash. Dec.
11, 2017)
Military
PI against Memorandum from Donald
Trump for the Secretary of Defense
and the Secretary of Homeland
Security on Military Service by
Transgender Individuals (Aug. 25,
2017)
14
Pennsylvania v. Trump, 281 F. Supp. 3d
553 (E.D. Pa. 2017), aff’d sub
nom. Pennsylvania v. President United
States, 930 F.3d 543 (3d Cir. 2019), as
amended (July 18, 2019), rev’d and
remanded sub nom. Little Sisters of the
Poor Saints Peter & Paul Home v.
Pennsylvania, 591 U.S. 657 (2020),
and rev’d sub nom. Pennsylvania v.
President United States, 816 F. App’x
632 (3d Cir. 2020) (unpublished)
Health Care
PI against Moral Exemption Rule and
Religious Exemption Rule, two
interim final rules exempting certain
entities from the Affordable Care
Act’s mandate to employers to
provide contraceptive coverage; PI
against final rules entered
Pennsylvania v. Trump, 351 F. Supp.
3d 791 (E.D. Pa. 2019), aff’d sub
nom. Pennsylvania v. President
United States, 930 F.3d 543 (3d Cir.
2019), as amended (July 18,
2019), rev’d and remanded sub
nom. Little Sisters of the Poor Saints
Peter & Paul Home v. Pennsylvania,
591 U.S. 657 (2020)
15
California v. Health & Hum. Servs., 281
F. Supp. 3d 806 (N.D. Cal. 2017), aff’d in
part, vacated in part, remanded sub
nom. California v. Azar, 911 F.3d 558
(9th Cir. 2018), and vacated sub nom.
March for Life Educ. & Def. Fund v.
California, 141 S. Ct. 192 (2020)
Health Care
PI against Moral Exemption Rule and
Religious Exemption Rule, two
interim final rules exempting certain
entities from the Affordable Care
Act’s mandate to employers to
provide contraceptive coverage
16
Stockman v. Trump, No. EDCV 17–1799
JGB, 2017 WL 9732572 (C.D. Cal. Dec.
22, 2017)
Military
PI against Memorandum from Donald
Trump for the Secretary of Defense
and the Secretary of Homeland
Security on Military Service by
Transgender Individuals (Aug. 25,
2017)
17
Doe v. Trump, 288 F. Supp. 3d 1045
(W.D. Wash. 2017)
Immigration
PI against agency memorandum
accompanying Exec. Order No.
13,815, Resuming the United States
Refugee Admissions Program with
Enhanced Vetting Capabilities
Congressional Research Service
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Caption
Topic
Notes
18
Regents of Univ. of California v. DHS,
279 F. Supp. 3d 1011 (N.D. Cal. 2018),
aff’d, 908 F.3d 476 (9th Cir. 2018), rev’d
in part, vacated, 591 U.S. 1 (2020)
Immigration
PI against termination of Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA) for existing enrollees
19
Batalla Vidal v. Nielsen, 279 F. Supp. 3d
401 (E.D.N.Y. 2018), vacated and
remanded sub nom. DHS v. Regents of
the Univ. of California, 591 U.S. 1 (2020)
Immigration
PI against termination of DACA
20
Casa de Maryland v. DHS, 284 F. Supp.
3d 758 (D. Md. 2018), aff’d in part, rev’d
in part, vacated in part 924 F.3d 684 (4th
Cir. 2019)
Immigration
Permanent injunction barring use of
information provided by DACA
participants for immigration
enforcement purposes
21
City of Los Angeles v. Sessions, 293 F.
Supp. 3d 1087 (C.D. Cal. 2018), rev’d sub
nom. City of Los Angeles v. Barr, 929
F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2019)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
Permanent injunction against
Community Oriented Policing
Services Grant program rule under
which applicants received bonus
points if they certified certain
cooperation with federal immigration
authorities; subsequent PI against
FY2017 Byrne Justice Assistance
Grant (JAG) program requirements
under which applicants would be
ineligible for funds if they failed to
assist in certain immigration
enforcement entered City of Los
Angeles v. Sessions, No. CV 177215-R, 2018 WL 6071072 (C.D.
Cal. Sept. 13, 2018), aff’d sub
nom. City of Los Angeles v. Barr, 941
F.3d 931 (9th Cir. 2019)
22
State of Washington v. Dep’t of State,
315 F. Supp. 3d 1202 (W.D. Wash.
2018)
Firearms
TRO against proposed rulemaking
and final rule revising the United
States Munitions List to allow the
distribution of computer-aided
design files for the automated
production of 3D-printed weapons;
PI entered Washington v. Dep’t of
State, 318 F. Supp. 3d 1247 (W.D.
Wash. 2018)
23
Free Speech Coal., Inc. v. Sessions, 322
F. Supp. 3d 605 (E.D. Pa. 2018), aff’d in
part, vacated in part, rev’d in part sub
nom. Free Speech Coal., Inc. v. Att’y
Gen. United States, 974 F.3d 408 (3d
Cir. 2020)
First Amendment
Permanent injunction against
requirements of the Child Protection
and Obscenity Enforcement Act and
implementing regulations related to
verification of ages of people
involved in production of sexually
explicit materials
24
City of Evanston v. Sessions, No. 18 C
4853, 2018 WL 10228461 (N.D. Ill. Aug.
9, 2018)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
PI against Byrne JAG program
requirements under which applicants
would be ineligible for funds if they
failed to satisfy certain conditions
related to immigration enforcement
Congressional Research Service
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Caption
Topic
Notes
25
S.C. Coastal Conservation League v.
Pruitt, 318 F. Supp. 3d 959 (D.S.C. 2018)
Environmental Law
Permanent injunction against rule
suspending 2015 Clean Water Rule
defining “waters of the United
States”
26
Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO v.
Trump, 318 F. Supp. 3d 370 (D.D.C.
2019), rev’d and vacated, 929 F.3d 748
(D.C. Cir. 2019)
Labor and Employment
Permanent injunction against
executive orders regarding collective
bargaining for federal employees
27
Ramos v. Nielsen, 336 F. Supp. 3d 1075
(N.D. Cal. 2018), vacated and remanded
sub nom. Ramos v. Wolf, 975 F.3d 872
(9th Cir. 2020), reh’g en banc granted,
opinion vacated, 59 F.4th 1010 (9th Cir.
2023)
Immigration
PI against termination of the
Temporary Protected Status
designations for Haiti, Sudan,
Nicaragua, and El Salvador
28
City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sessions,
349 F. Supp. 3d 924 (N.D. Cal.
2018), judgment entered sub
nom. California ex rel. Becerra v.
Sessions, No. 3:17-CV-04701-WHO,
2018 WL 6069940 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 20,
2018), aff’d in part, vacated in part sub
nom. City & Cnty. of San Francisco v.
Barr, 965 F.3d 753 (9th Cir. 2020)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
Permanent injunction against 2017
Byrne JAG program requirements
under which applicants would be
ineligible for funds if they failed to
satisfy certain conditions related to
immigration enforcement
29
E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump,
349 F. Supp. 3d 838 (N.D. Cal.
2018), aff’d, 950 F.3d 1242 (9th Cir.
2020), and aff’d sub nom. E. Bay
Sanctuary Covenant v. Biden, 993 F.3d
640 (9th Cir. 2021) (en banc)
Immigration
TRO against presidential
proclamation and DOJ and DHS rule
allowing asylum to be granted only
to those who enter the United
States at a designated port of entry;
PI granted E. Bay Sanctuary
Covenant v. Trump, 354 F. Supp. 3d
1094 (N.D. Cal. 2018), aff’d, 950 F.3d
1242 (9th Cir. 2020), and aff’d sub
nom. E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v.
Biden, 993 F.3d 640 (9th Cir. 2021)
30
Grace v. Whitaker, 344 F. Supp. 3d 96
(D.D.C. 2018), aff’d in part, rev’d in part
and remanded sub nom. Grace v. Barr,
965 F.3d 883 (D.C. Cir. 2020)
Immigration
Permanent injunction against AG
precedential decision and DOJ policy
memorandum that determined that
claims based on domestic or gang
violence could not establish credible
fear in expedited removal
proceedings
31
New York v. Dep’t of Com., 351 F.
Supp. 3d 502 (S.D.N.Y. 2019), aff’d in
part, rev’d in part, 588 U.S. 752 (2019)
Census
Permanent injunction against
inclusion of a question about
citizenship on the 2020 census
questionnaire
Congressional Research Service
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Caption
Topic
Notes
32
City of Los Angeles v. Sessions, No. CV
18-7347-R, 2019 WL 1957966 (C.D. Cal.
Feb. 15, 2019)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
Permanent injunction against FY2018
Byrne JAG program and Gang
Suppression Grant Program
requirements under which applicants
would be ineligible for funds if they
failed to satisfy certain conditions
related to immigration enforcement;
additional permanent injunction
entered City of Los Angeles v. Barr,
No. 2:18-CV-07347-JLS-JC, 2020 WL
11272648 (C.D. Cal. June 17, 2020)
33
Roe v. Shanahan, 359 F. Supp. 3d 382
(E.D. Va. 2019), aff’d sub nom. Roe v.
Dep’t of Def., 947 F.3d 207 (4th Cir.
2020), as amended, (Jan. 14, 2020)
Military
PI against discharge of HIV-positive
active-duty servicemembers from the
military
34
S.A. v. Trump, No. 18-CV-03539-LB,
2019 WL 990680 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 1,
2019)202
Immigration
PI against DHS mass-rescission of
conditional approvals of certain
parolees under the Central American
Minors program
35
City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sessions,
372 F. Supp. 3d 928 (N.D. Cal.
2019), aff’d in part, vacated in part,
remanded sub nom. City & Cnty. of San
Francisco v. Garland, 42 F.4th 1078 (9th
Cir. 2022)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
Permanent injunction against FY2018
Byrne JAG program requirements
under which applicants would be
ineligible for funds if they failed to
satisfy certain conditions related to
immigration enforcement
36
California v. Ross, 358 F. Supp. 3d 965
(N.D. Cal.), vacated, 139 S. Ct. 2778
(2019) (Mem)
Census
Permanent injunction against
inclusion of a question about
citizenship on the 2020 census
questionnaire
37
Kravitz v. Dep’t of Com., 366 F. Supp. 3d
681 (D. Md. 2019), remanded sub nom. La
Union Del Pueblo Entero v. Ross, 771
Fed. App’x 323 (4th Cir. 2019) (Mem)
(unpublished)
Census
Permanent injunction against
inclusion of a question about
citizenship on the 2020 census
questionnaire
38
Innovation L. Lab v. Nielsen, 366 F. Supp.
3d 1110 (N.D. Cal. 2019), aff’d sub
nom. Innovation L. Lab v. Wolf, 951 F.3d
1073 (9th Cir. 2020), vacated and
remanded sub nom. Mayorkas v.
Innovation L. Lab, 141 S. Ct. 2842
(2021), and vacated as moot and
remanded sub nom. Innovation L. Lab v.
Mayorkas, 5 F.4th 1099 (9th Cir. 2021),
Immigration
PI against requirements under the
Migrant Protection Protocols that
compelled non-Mexican asylum
seekers to remain in Mexico for the
duration of their immigration
proceedings
39
Saget v. Trump, 375 F. Supp. 3d 280
(E.D.N.Y. 2019)
Immigration
PI against termination of the
Temporary Protected Status
designation for Haiti
202 The district court later entered a stipulated permanent injunction barring enforcement of the policy against all
affected persons. See Order Granting Stipulated Final Judgment and Order for Permanent Injunction, S.A. v. Trump,
No. 18-CV-03539-LB, (N.D. Cal. May 17, 2019).
Congressional Research Service
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Caption
Topic
Notes
40
Washington v. Azar, 376 F. Supp. 3d
1119 (E.D. Wash. 2019), vacated and
remanded sub nom. California by &
through Becerra v. Azar, 950 F.3d 1067
(9th Cir. 2020) (en banc)
Health Care
PI against HHS final rule revising
regulations governing Title X family
planning programs
41
Oregon v. Azar, 389 F. Supp. 3d 898 (D.
Or. 2019), vacated and remanded sub
nom. California by & through Becerra v.
Azar, 950 F.3d 1067 (9th Cir. 2020) (en
banc)
Health Care
PI against HHS final rule revising
regulations governing Title X family
planning programs
42
Guilford Coll. v. McAleenan, 389 F. Supp.
3d 377 (M.D.N.C. 2019)
Immigration
PI against USCIS policy memorandum
regarding calculation of unlawful
presence for certain nonimmigrant
visa holders under the Immigration
and Nationality Act; permanent
injunction entered Guilford Coll. v.
Wolf, No. 1:18CV891, 2020 WL
586672 (M.D.N.C. Feb. 6, 2020)
43
Sierra Club v. Trump, 379 F. Supp. 3d
883 (N.D. Cal. 2019), aff’d, 963 F.3d 874
(9th Cir. 2020), vacated and remanded
sub nom. Biden v. Sierra Club, 142 S. Ct.
46 (2021)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
PI against using redirected federal
funds for construction of a physical
barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border
44
E. Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr, 385
F. Supp. 3d 922 (N.D. Cal. 2019), order
reinstated, 391 F. Supp. 3d 974 (N.D. Cal.
2019), aff’d, 964 F.3d 832 (9th Cir.
2020), and aff’d sub nom. E. Bay
Sanctuary Covenant v. Garland, 994 F.3d
962 (9th Cir. 2020)
Immigration
PI against DOJ and DHS interim final
rule that denied asylum to most
people entering the United States at
the southern border who did not
first apply for asylum in Mexico or in
another third country that they
traveled through
45
J.O.P. v. DHS, 409 F. Supp. 3d 367 (D.
Md. 2019)
Immigration
TRO barring enforcement a USCIS
memorandum instituting a policy
change as to who may determine
that an individual is an
unaccompanied alien child under the
INA and when that determination
must be made; PI entered Order
Granting Motion for Preliminary
Injunction, No. 19-cv-0194420 (D.
Md. Oct. 15, 2019)
46
City of Chicago v. Barr, 405 F. Supp. 3d
748 (N.D. Ill. 2019), aff’d and
remanded, 957 F.3d 772 (7th Cir.
2020), opinion amended and
superseded, 961 F.3d 882 (7th Cir. 2020),
and aff’d and remanded, 961 F.3d 882
(7th Cir. 2020), and opinion withdrawn in
part, 513 F. Supp. 3d 828 (N.D. Ill. 2021)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
Permanent injunction against Byrne
JAG program requirements under
which applicants would be ineligible
for funds if they failed to satisfy
certain conditions related to
immigration enforcement
Congressional Research Service
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Nationwide Injunctions Under the First Trump Administration and the Biden Administration
Caption
Topic
Notes
47
Make the Rd. New York v. McAleenan,
405 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2019), rev’d
and remanded sub nom. Make the Rd.
New York v. Wolf, 962 F.3d 612 (D.C.
Cir. 2020)
Immigration
PI against DHS announcement that it
was designating certain aliens, who
had been in United States for up to
two years and who were located
anywhere within the interior of the
United States, as eligible for
expedited removal
48
Cloud Peak Energy Inc. v. Dep’t of the
Interior, 415 F. Supp. 3d 1034 (D. Wyo.
2019)
Energy
PI against DOI valuation rule for
calculating royalties on oil, gas, and
coal produced from federal lands and
offshore leases, and coal produced
from Indian lands
49
Washington v. DHS, 408 F. Supp. 3d
1191 (E.D. Wash. 2019), aff’d in part,
vacated in part sub nom. City & Cnty. of
San Francisco v. U.S. Citizenship &
Immigr. Servs., 981 F.3d 742 (9th Cir.
2020)
Immigration
PI against DHS final rule redefining
whether a visa applicant and any
applicant for legal permanent
residency is considered inadmissible
because DHS finds him or her “likely
at any time to become a public
charge”
50
New York v. DHS, 408 F. Supp. 3d 334
(S.D.N.Y. 2019), aff’d as modified, 969
F.3d 42 (2d Cir. 2020)
Immigration
PI against DHS final rule redefining
whether a visa applicant and any
applicant for legal permanent
residency is considered inadmissible
because DHS finds him or her “likely
at any time to become a public
charge”; additional PI entered, 475 F.
Supp. 3d 208 (S.D.N.Y. 2020)
51
Make the Rd. New York v. Cuccinelli,
419 F. Supp. 3d 647 (S.D.N.Y.
2019), aff’d as modified sub nom. New
York v. DHS, 969 F.3d 42 (2d Cir. 2020)
Immigration
PI against DHS final rule redefining
whether a visa applicant and any
applicant for legal permanent
residency is considered inadmissible
because DHS finds him or her “likely
at any time to become a public
charge”
52
Casa De Maryland, Inc. v. Trump, 414 F.
Supp. 3d 760 (D. Md. 2019), rev’d, 971
F.3d 220 (4th Cir. 2020)
Immigration
PI against DHS final rule redefining
whether a visa applicant and any
applicant for legal permanent
residency is considered inadmissible
because DHS finds him or her “likely
at any time to become a public
charge”
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Notes
53
Doe #1 v. Trump, 414 F. Supp. 3d 1307
(D. Or. 2019)
Immigration
TRO against Presidential
Proclamation No. 9945, Suspension
of Entry of Immigrants Who Will
Financially Burden the United States
Healthcare System, in Order To
Protect the Availability of Healthcare
Benefits for Americans, suspending
entry of immigrants that could not
demonstrate they would be covered
by approved health insurance in the
United States or had the means to
pay for reasonably foreseeable
medical expenses within thirty days
of entry, PI entered in Doe v. Trump,
418 F. Supp. 3d 573 (D. Or. 2019),
rev’d and vacated sub nom. Doe #1 v.
Trump, 984 F.3d 848 (9th Cir. 2020),
vacated on denial of reh’g en banc sub
nom. Doe #1 v. Biden, 2 F.4th 1284
(9th Cir. 2021)
54
El Paso Cnty. v. Trump, 407 F. Supp. 3d
655 (W.D. Tex. 2019), aff’d in part,
vacated in part, rev’d in part, 982 F.3d 332
(5th Cir. 2020)
Federal Funding
(Immigration)
Permanent injunction against
redirection of federal funds for
construction of a barrier on the U.S.Mexico border
55
City of Seattle v. DHS, No. 19-cv-7151
(N.D. Cal. Dec. 11, 2019)
Immigration
PI against enforcement of changes to
the process and criteria for
requesting fee waivers from USCIS
for the costs of immigration benefit
applications and petitions
56
Smith v. U.S. Immigr. & Customs Enf’t,
429 F. Supp. 3d 742 (D. Colo. 2019)
FOIA
Permanent injunction barring
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement from withholding
certain records from FOIA
responses
57
HIAS, Inc. v. Trump, 415 F. Supp. 3d 669
(D. Md. 2020), aff’d, 985 F.3d 309 (4th
Cir. 2021)
Immigration
PI against Exec. Order No. 13,888,
Enhancing State and Local
Involvement in Refugee Resettlement
and State Department notice of
funding, giving individual U.S. states
and local governments the power to
refuse to consent to the
resettlement in their respective
jurisdictions of certain refugees
58
Washington v. Dep’t of State, 443 F.
Supp. 3d 1245 (W.D. Wash.
2020), vacated, 996 F.3d 552 (9th Cir.
2021)
Firearms
PI against 2020 final rule revising the
United States Munitions List to allow
the distribution of computer-aided
design files for the automated
production of 3D-printed weapons
59
District of Columbia v. Dep’t of Agric.,
444 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2020)
Federal Aid
PI against USDA final rule limiting of
work requirements for receipt of
food assistance from the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program
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Notes
60
N. Plains Res. Council v. U.S. Army
Corps of Eng’rs, 454 F. Supp. 3d 985 (D.
Mont. 2020), amended, 460 F. Supp. 3d
1030 (D. Mont. 2020), vacated and
granted in part, 141 S. Ct. 190 (2020),
appeal dismissed and remanded, No. 2035412, 2021 WL 7368336 (9th Cir. Aug.
11, 2021)
Environmental Law
Permanent injunction against
Nationwide Permit 12 issued under
the Clean Water Act
61
Am. Coll. of Obstetricians &
Gynecologists v. U.S. Food & Drug
Admin., 472 F. Supp. 3d 183 (D. Md.
2020), order clarified sub nom. Am. Coll.
of Obstetricians & Gynecologists on
behalf of Council of Univ. Chairs of
Obstetrics & Gynecology v. U.S. Food &
Drug Admin., No. CV TDC-20-1320,
2020 WL 8167535 (D. Md. Aug. 19,
2020)
Health Care
PI against enforcement during
COVID-19 pandemic of in-person
dispensing and signature
requirements applicable to the
prescribing of mifepristone to
medication abortion patients
62
Make the Rd. New York v. Pompeo, 475
F. Supp. 3d 232 (S.D.N.Y. 2020)
Immigration
PI against State Department changes
to Foreign Affairs Manual, a State
Department rule, and a presidential
proclamation governing
determinations of whether a visa
applicant is ineligible because they
are likely to become a “public
charge”
63
Walker v. Azar, 480 F. Supp. 3d 417
(E.D.N.Y. 2020)
Health Care
PI against HHS rule removing
prohibitions on discrimination on the
basis of gender or sex stereotyping;
additional PI entered Walker v. Azar,
No. 20-CV-2834, 2020 WL 6363970
(E.D.N.Y. Oct. 29, 2020)
64
Whitman-Walker Clinic, Inc. v. Dep’t of
Health & Hum. Servs., 485 F. Supp. 3d 1
(D.D.C. 2020)
Health Care
PI against HHS rule removing
prohibitions on discrimination on the
basis of gender or sex stereotyping
65
Gomez v. Trump, 485 F. Supp. 3d 145
(D.D.C. 2020), amended in part, 486 F.
Supp. 3d 445 (D.D.C. 2020), and
amended in part sub nom. Gomez v.
Biden, No. 20-CV-01419 (APM), 2021
WL 1037866 (D.D.C. Feb. 19, 2021)
Immigration
PI against State Department
restrictions on visa processing and
issuance of diversity visas due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
66
Nat’l Urb. League v. Ross, 484 F. Supp.
3d 802 (N.D. Cal. 2020)
Census
TRO against U.S. Census Bureau
decision to reduce time frames for
data collection and processing for
the 2020 census; PI entered, 489 F.
Supp. 3d 939 (N.D. Cal. 2020), order
clarified, 491 F. Supp. 3d 572 (N.D.
Cal. 2020)
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Notes
67
New York v. Trump, 485 F. Supp. 3d
422 (S.D.N.Y. 2020), vacated, 592 U.S.
125 (2020)
Immigration
Permanent injunction against
presidential memorandum
implementing a new policy that
directed the exclusion of “aliens who
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