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I get the concern, but this ruling doesn’t stop courts from checking illegal executive action. It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties

I get the concern, but this ruling doesn’t stop courts from checking illegal executive action. It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. Nationwide injunctions were never clearly authorized by statute, and letting any one of 700 district judges block a federal policy everywhere created chaos and forum shopping. If a policy is truly unconstitutional, the proper path is a class action or taking it up to the Supreme Court Not giving individual judges a veto over national law.

vkou 1y ago
> Not giving individual judges a veto over national law. It's not a veto, it's a delay until appeal. If the lower court is wrong, SCOTUS has never had any issue with settling the question. The fact that the government isn't appealing means that they know they can't win on appeal, and what they are doing is illegal.
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  Right, it’s a delay, not a final veto. But when that delay applies nationwide, it functions like a veto until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern. But the solution isn’t to stretch injunction power beyond its legal limits It is about who gets to block national policy for everyone, based on one local case. That kind of sweeping relief was never authorized by Congress
  - vkou 1y ago
    > until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years It doesn't take months or years for SCOTUS to determine whether or not they will take a case. If they don't want to take it, they are fine with the arguments made in the lower courts, and tough shit, but that means that the loser is in the wrong. > If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern. You're damn right it's a valid concern. It's a valid concern because this removed the only mechanism that there was to force them to address it.
    - firesteelrain 1y ago
      It needs to work it’s way through the lower courts.. circuit, district, etc That’s the months and years part We can’t be circumventing the process at the lower levels by forum shopping
      - paulryanrogers 1y ago
        > We can’t be circumventing the process at the lower levels by forum shopping So fix forum shopping by making the president a king?
        firesteelrain 1y ago
        Come on. Nobody is making the president a king just because we expect lawsuits to follow the normal path through the courts. Wanting judges to stay in their lane isn’t authoritarian, it’s basic constitutional structure.
        paulryanrogers 1y ago
        He can sign unconstitutional EOs, and the only folks who can get relief are those who have a lawyer on call, or a class action, or can pull enough strings to get their case appealed to the court which he clearly has in his back pocket. (In addition to other fun things like immunity from criminal prosecution forever, cannot even be investigated in most cases, and cannot be disqualified from office after inciting a riot to stop the transfer of power.)
    - agensaequivocum 1y ago
      It does take them months or years when they don't care to enforce something. Multiple times they've refused to reinstate a preliminary injection in "assault" weapon bans because it's inappropriate to get involved at a preliminary stage. Then we get a final judgment well we really need "more percolation first." But when it comes to other issues like transgender mutilation surgeries, abortion, or Trump they'll happily step in and reinstate an injection or issue one. DC v Heller filed in 2003 supreme court decision in 2008 NYSRPA v Bruen filed 2018 decision 2022. Miller v Bonta filed in 2018 still pending after being GVRd after bruen. Currently waiting for 521 days for another opinion from the 9th. Young v Hawaii filed 2012 GVRd then dismissed in 2022 as Bruen answered the same issue. Harrel v Raoul filed 2023 in 2024 the Supreme Court declined to reinstated the preliminary injunction that the Appeals court stayed. Still pending. Ocean State Tactical v Rhode Island filed in 2022. The Supreme Court declined to instate a preliminary injunction in May of 2025. Still pending. Renna v Bonta currently at 675 days waiting for an opinion from the 9th. Boland v Bonta currently at 675 days waiting for an opinion from the 9th. Palmer v Lombardo currently at 781 days waiting for an opinion from the 9th. Koons v Platkin currently at 612 days waiting for an opinion from the 3rd. There are many more cases with the same pattern.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    Please stop with the weasel words. "Functions as a veto" is not what's happening, and wielding the "veto" word is just a disingenuous attempt to make a weak argument sound stronger. > until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years If SCOTUS decides that something is urgent, they'll step in immediately. If they wait months or years, then they are signalling that the harm of waiting is not high enough to take up their immediate attention.
    - firesteelrain 1y ago
      SCOTUS has to wait for the process below it to play out. It’s not designed to jump at every grievance instantly
lostapathy 1y ago
> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. So every person wronged by the government should sue individually?
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  Not necessarily. That’s where class actions come in The point is that relief should be tied to proper procedure, not handed out universally by default. One judge shouldn’t decide national policy based on one plaintiff unless the case is structured to justify it
  - beej71 1y ago
    It seems like the GPs issue still remains, except instead of individual lawsuits forever, it's class action lawsuits forever, does it not?
    - firesteelrain 1y ago
      They slow down the “forever lawsuit” problem by consolidating claims, reducing conflicting rulings, and giving defendants a clear path to challenge the case’s scope. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than unlimited nationwide injunctions from any one court.
      - vkou 1y ago
        This creates conflicting rulings, because now anyone who is party to a lawsuit has one precedent for them, and everyone else isn't. If a state now sues the federal government on behalf of its citizens that a federal action is illegal, and wins, you now has a situation where a federal action is constitutionally illegal in one state, but is legal in another. How the hell is this consistent? This doesn't consolidate anything. It removes the thing that forced consolidation - the ability of a court to issue an injunction and stop illegal actions from continuing - which forced the government to either give up, or appeal up. Now, everything is a legal patchwork.
majormajor 1y ago
> Nationwide injunctions were never clearly authorized by statute, and letting any one of 700 district judges block a federal policy everywhere created chaos and forum shopping. What chaos that would be worse than the chaos of jurisdictional fracturing they're asking for here and the possibility to not let cases escalate to courts with supposed national jurisdiction? Rulings were stayed all the time. The existence of a national injunction seems built in to the job of a federal judge since federal law is definitionally national. Voiding it only locally, or only in regard to specific plaintiffs, seems like a huge wishful reach.
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  But, we did get conflicting nationwide rulings from different district courts, which encouraged forum shopping and rushed litigation. Federal law is national, but relief in equity has always been limited to the parties before the court unless a class is certified > The existence of a national injunction seems built in to the job of a federal judge since federal law is definitionally national That’s a clever line. See, there is a difference between saying “this law is unconstitutional” and saying “this law is blocked for everyone, everywhere.”
  - majormajor 1y ago
    >But, we did get conflicting nationwide rulings from different district courts, which encouraged forum shopping and rushed litigation. And... who was suffering for it, exactly? How was it hurting me? > That’s a clever line. > > See, there is a difference between saying “this law is unconstitutional” and saying “this law is blocked for everyone, everywhere.” "This law is only blocked for these people" is the less "clever", more "obvious" situation in your mind? No, that's a clever hack that same sneaky bastard came up with to justify removing further obstacles for the executive to increase its own power. But it seems to fly against the face of history. Federal law has been in the business of preempting local authority for centuries. Now we want to unwind that and let jurisdictions opt-out case-by-case?
    - firesteelrain 1y ago
atmavatar 1y ago
> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. The actual parties will have been shipped off to another country, unable to bring the case, and anyone not already deported would lack standing to challenge the action. That seems awfully convenient for the executive.
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  Are you arguing against our existing immigration laws that the executive has to enforce?
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    Are you arguing that the government should be free to act unconstitutionally?
  - bravesoul2 1y ago
    Do you have a reference to the law about deporting citizens. I can't find it.
    - firesteelrain 1y ago
      I don’t know what you are referring to
      - bravesoul2 1y ago
        First paragraph of TFA > The US supreme court has supported Donald Trump’s attempt to limit lower-court orders that have so far blocked his administration’s ban on birthright citizenship See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_th...
        msgodel 1y ago
        Those are only "citizens" because of a weird legal technicality that's a holdover from the civil war era. Most countries don't do that because the incentives it creates are kind of insane and very destructive in practice.
kelnos 1y ago
> Not giving individual judges a veto over national law. An injunction is not a veto. I'm tired of people using this disingenuous phrasing in order to make a weak argument sound stronger.
toast0 1y ago
I don't know a lot about class definition, but I've been a party through a class to about half a million lawsuits... Doesn't this just change most of these lawsuits into a class action where the class is say all the people born in the US of non-citizen parents, with the class represntative in the most friendly venue and then a district judge can accept the class and issue the injuction if they see fit? Then the executive branch can presumably appeal the injuction and the class certification, and in the meantime, the injuction isn't valid for people who aren't in the class, but they probably aren't covered by the executive order either. And I guess a handful of people immediately effected might file separately too, but if the class is certified (even if challenged) their case will probably be joined?
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  It is fair to say that the system isn't perfect, but it's functioning the way it was designed Class certification for the entire United States of those classes of people might be too large. Usually the courts prefer a more narrow class some people will fall through the cracks in the meantime (and you may not like this answer), but that doesn’t automatically justify expanding judicial authority beyond what Article III or the separation of powers allows The system without national injunctions is functioning as designed

vkou 1y ago

> Not giving individual judges a veto over national law. It's not a veto, it's a delay until appeal. If the lower court is wrong, SCOTUS has never had any issue with settling the question. The fact that the government isn't appealing means that they know they can't win on appeal, and what they are doing is illegal.

firesteelrain 1y ago
Right, it’s a delay, not a final veto. But when that delay applies nationwide, it functions like a veto until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern. But the solution isn’t to stretch injunction power beyond its legal limits It is about who gets to block national policy for everyone, based on one local case. That kind of sweeping relief was never authorized by Congress
- vkou 1y ago
  > until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years It doesn't take months or years for SCOTUS to determine whether or not they will take a case. If they don't want to take it, they are fine with the arguments made in the lower courts, and tough shit, but that means that the loser is in the wrong. > If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern. You're damn right it's a valid concern. It's a valid concern because this removed the only mechanism that there was to force them to address it.
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    It needs to work it’s way through the lower courts.. circuit, district, etc That’s the months and years part We can’t be circumventing the process at the lower levels by forum shopping
    - paulryanrogers 1y ago
      > We can’t be circumventing the process at the lower levels by forum shopping So fix forum shopping by making the president a king?
      - firesteelrain 1y ago
        Come on. Nobody is making the president a king just because we expect lawsuits to follow the normal path through the courts. Wanting judges to stay in their lane isn’t authoritarian, it’s basic constitutional structure.
        paulryanrogers 1y ago
        He can sign unconstitutional EOs, and the only folks who can get relief are those who have a lawyer on call, or a class action, or can pull enough strings to get their case appealed to the court which he clearly has in his back pocket. (In addition to other fun things like immunity from criminal prosecution forever, cannot even be investigated in most cases, and cannot be disqualified from office after inciting a riot to stop the transfer of power.)
  - agensaequivocum 1y ago
    It does take them months or years when they don't care to enforce something. Multiple times they've refused to reinstate a preliminary injection in "assault" weapon bans because it's inappropriate to get involved at a preliminary stage. Then we get a final judgment well we really need "more percolation first." But when it comes to other issues like transgender mutilation surgeries, abortion, or Trump they'll happily step in and reinstate an injection or issue one. DC v Heller filed in 2003 supreme court decision in 2008 NYSRPA v Bruen filed 2018 decision 2022. Miller v Bonta filed in 2018 still pending after being GVRd after bruen. Currently waiting for 521 days for another opinion from the 9th. Young v Hawaii filed 2012 GVRd then dismissed in 2022 as Bruen answered the same issue. Harrel v Raoul filed 2023 in 2024 the Supreme Court declined to reinstated the preliminary injunction that the Appeals court stayed. Still pending. Ocean State Tactical v Rhode Island filed in 2022. The Supreme Court declined to instate a preliminary injunction in May of 2025. Still pending. Renna v Bonta currently at 675 days waiting for an opinion from the 9th. Boland v Bonta currently at 675 days waiting for an opinion from the 9th. Palmer v Lombardo currently at 781 days waiting for an opinion from the 9th. Koons v Platkin currently at 612 days waiting for an opinion from the 3rd. There are many more cases with the same pattern.
- kelnos 1y ago
  Please stop with the weasel words. "Functions as a veto" is not what's happening, and wielding the "veto" word is just a disingenuous attempt to make a weak argument sound stronger. > until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years If SCOTUS decides that something is urgent, they'll step in immediately. If they wait months or years, then they are signalling that the harm of waiting is not high enough to take up their immediate attention.
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    SCOTUS has to wait for the process below it to play out. It’s not designed to jump at every grievance instantly

lostapathy 1y ago

> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. So every person wronged by the government should sue individually?

firesteelrain 1y ago
Not necessarily. That’s where class actions come in The point is that relief should be tied to proper procedure, not handed out universally by default. One judge shouldn’t decide national policy based on one plaintiff unless the case is structured to justify it
- beej71 1y ago
  It seems like the GPs issue still remains, except instead of individual lawsuits forever, it's class action lawsuits forever, does it not?
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    They slow down the “forever lawsuit” problem by consolidating claims, reducing conflicting rulings, and giving defendants a clear path to challenge the case’s scope. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than unlimited nationwide injunctions from any one court.
    - vkou 1y ago
      This creates conflicting rulings, because now anyone who is party to a lawsuit has one precedent for them, and everyone else isn't. If a state now sues the federal government on behalf of its citizens that a federal action is illegal, and wins, you now has a situation where a federal action is constitutionally illegal in one state, but is legal in another. How the hell is this consistent? This doesn't consolidate anything. It removes the thing that forced consolidation - the ability of a court to issue an injunction and stop illegal actions from continuing - which forced the government to either give up, or appeal up. Now, everything is a legal patchwork.

majormajor 1y ago

> Nationwide injunctions were never clearly authorized by statute, and letting any one of 700 district judges block a federal policy everywhere created chaos and forum shopping. What chaos that would be worse than the chaos of jurisdictional fracturing they're asking for here and the possibility to not let cases escalate to courts with supposed national jurisdiction? Rulings were stayed all the time. The existence of a national injunction seems built in to the job of a federal judge since federal law is definitionally national. Voiding it only locally, or only in regard to specific plaintiffs, seems like a huge wishful reach.

firesteelrain 1y ago
But, we did get conflicting nationwide rulings from different district courts, which encouraged forum shopping and rushed litigation. Federal law is national, but relief in equity has always been limited to the parties before the court unless a class is certified > The existence of a national injunction seems built in to the job of a federal judge since federal law is definitionally national That’s a clever line. See, there is a difference between saying “this law is unconstitutional” and saying “this law is blocked for everyone, everywhere.”
- majormajor 1y ago
  >But, we did get conflicting nationwide rulings from different district courts, which encouraged forum shopping and rushed litigation. And... who was suffering for it, exactly? How was it hurting me? > That’s a clever line. > > See, there is a difference between saying “this law is unconstitutional” and saying “this law is blocked for everyone, everywhere.” "This law is only blocked for these people" is the less "clever", more "obvious" situation in your mind? No, that's a clever hack that same sneaky bastard came up with to justify removing further obstacles for the executive to increase its own power. But it seems to fly against the face of history. Federal law has been in the business of preempting local authority for centuries. Now we want to unwind that and let jurisdictions opt-out case-by-case?
  - firesteelrain 1y ago

atmavatar 1y ago

> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. The actual parties will have been shipped off to another country, unable to bring the case, and anyone not already deported would lack standing to challenge the action. That seems awfully convenient for the executive.

firesteelrain 1y ago
Are you arguing against our existing immigration laws that the executive has to enforce?
- ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
  Are you arguing that the government should be free to act unconstitutionally?
- bravesoul2 1y ago
  Do you have a reference to the law about deporting citizens. I can't find it.
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    I don’t know what you are referring to
    - bravesoul2 1y ago
      First paragraph of TFA > The US supreme court has supported Donald Trump’s attempt to limit lower-court orders that have so far blocked his administration’s ban on birthright citizenship See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_th...
      - msgodel 1y ago
        Those are only "citizens" because of a weird legal technicality that's a holdover from the civil war era. Most countries don't do that because the incentives it creates are kind of insane and very destructive in practice.

kelnos 1y ago

> Not giving individual judges a veto over national law. An injunction is not a veto. I'm tired of people using this disingenuous phrasing in order to make a weak argument sound stronger.

toast0 1y ago

I don't know a lot about class definition, but I've been a party through a class to about half a million lawsuits... Doesn't this just change most of these lawsuits into a class action where the class is say all the people born in the US of non-citizen parents, with the class represntative in the most friendly venue and then a district judge can accept the class and issue the injuction if they see fit? Then the executive branch can presumably appeal the injuction and the class certification, and in the meantime, the injuction isn't valid for people who aren't in the class, but they probably aren't covered by the executive order either. And I guess a handful of people immediately effected might file separately too, but if the class is certified (even if challenged) their case will probably be joined?

firesteelrain 1y ago
It is fair to say that the system isn't perfect, but it's functioning the way it was designed Class certification for the entire United States of those classes of people might be too large. Usually the courts prefer a more narrow class some people will fall through the cracks in the meantime (and you may not like this answer), but that doesn’t automatically justify expanding judicial authority beyond what Article III or the separation of powers allows The system without national injunctions is functioning as designed