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After Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, I told my colleagues that we were going to need a legal section on our politics page, as I anticipated much of what his administration might do would end up in the courts.
That prediction has been borne out, and much of what we’ve tried to provide our readers has been explanation and analysis of the underlying principles, rights and laws implicated in the various actions the administration has taken. One recent story focused on due process and how that constitutional principle is crucial to the cases of those alleged gang members deported to a prison in El Salvador.
In another recent story, legal scholar Cassandra Burke Robertson raked into a pile a number of cases that illustrate a well-used but increasingly controversial power held by federal judges.
“When presidents try to make big changes through executive orders, they often hit a roadblock: A single federal judge, whether located in Seattle or Miami or anywhere in between, can stop these policies across the entire country,” Robertson writes.
These orders are called “nationwide injunctions” and have been used to stop a number of Trump administration actions, including the attempt to deny birthright citizenship.
Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to limit judges’ power to issue these injunctions; Congress just held hearings on them. As Robertson writes, the point of the injunctions is not necessarily to stop a policy from eventually going forward. Instead, it sets a temporary pause of the policy if the judge determines it might cause “immediate, irreparable harm.”
But as with much of what has happened over the past 2½ months, a legal principle has become part of a struggle between the power of the judicial branch in our democracy and the power of the president. We hope that by explaining this legal concept, we can help you understand the conflict at a deeper level.
Also in this week’s politics news:
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