Selective Justice: How Stephen Miller and GOP States Reversed Their Stance on Nationwide Injunctions

On May 15th, the Supreme Court will consider President Trump’s application to stay multiple nationwide preliminary injunctions against his executive order ending birthright citizenship.

In the President’s telling, federal judges lack the authority to impose broad injunctive relief when addressing a constitutional violation or other legal dispute. It’s a line of argument that his key allies and advisors, like Stephen Miller, have also publicly stressed. Miller, in particular, has loudly lambasted nationwide injunctions in multiple fora as of late, part and parcel with his broader strategy of undermining judicial scrutiny of the Trump administration.

But Miller was singing a very different tune less than a year ago. In several immigration law cases filed against the Biden administration, a prominent conservative group that he founded, America First Legal, repeatedly pressed for broad nationwide injunctions on behalf of GOP-led states:

• In August 2024, America First Legal requested a nationwide injunction to stop the Biden administration’s “parole in place” program, which would allow up to 550,000 people to receive temporary protections and work permits in the U.S.

• In February 2023, America First Legal requested a nationwide injunction to stop the Biden administration’s CHNV program, which allowed immigrants from certain countries to legally work and live in the U.S. on parole. Twenty GOP-led states joined the lawsuit.

• In April 2021, America First Legal requested a nationwide injunction to curtail immigration due to alleged public health concerns.

In another case, the group claimed an “AFL victory” after a judge issued a nationwide injunction in a lawsuit challenging a vaccine mandate for federal employees (which was similar to one of AFL’s own lawsuits).

Almost all of the Republican-led states that previously requested nationwide injunctions against the Biden administration have now signed on to amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to limit the authority of trial court judges to impose broad injunctive relief—a breathtaking about-face.