Trump To SCOTUS: Stop Judges Governing ‘Whole Nation From Their Courtrooms’

 President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to stop judges across the country from governing the “whole nation from their courtrooms,” court filings show.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris submitted an application to the Supreme Court on Thursday for a partial stay of an injunction issued by a Maryland court — simultaneously filing similar injunctions for cases in Washington State and Massachusetts. These cases all involve challenges to Trump’s January Executive Order on birthright citizenship.

“This is hardly the first time that individual district judges have entered injunctions to ‘govern the whole Nation from their courtrooms,'” the filing states. “Such universal injunctions, though ‘a relatively new phenomenon,’ have become ubiquitous, posing ‘a question of great significance that has been in need of the Court’s attention for some time.'”

“That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court’s emergency docket,” the filing adds.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The Trump administration argues that the Supreme Court “should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched.”

“The Court should stay the district courts’ preliminary injunctions except as to the individual plaintiffs and the identified members of the organizational plaintiffs (and, if the Court concludes that States are proper litigants, as to individuals who are born or reside in those States),” the filing continues. “At a minimum, the Court should stay the injunctions to the extent they prohibit agencies from developing and issuing public guidance regarding the implementation of the Order. Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable.”

The move came after U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered Trump’s agencies to rehire thousands of employees who had been fired, calling these firings a “sham” and “unlawful.”

“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” argued White House Press Secretary Karolin Leavitt in response to the news. “The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch — singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda.”

“If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves,” she added. “The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order.”