Coalition Of State Attorneys General Challenge ‘Injunction Dysfunction’

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South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has filed a brief on the behalf of a coalition of states in support of U.S. president Donald Trump‘s recent decision to deport Tren De Aragua (TdA) gang members.

Prior to the deportation, Trump’s administration classified TdA as a foreign terrorist organization – a legal label which expands executive authority to bring the force of the federal government to bear on the organization. Trump also invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that gives the president sweeping legal authority to take action against non-citizens.

Trump’s invocation and deportation actions were almost immediately met by left-wing activist legal challenges and a corresponding injunction order.

Universal injunctions, a legal tool rarely used prior to Trump’s first administration, allow any of the nearly 700 members of the federal judiciary to issue orders preventing the implementation of executive policies nationwide.

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U.S. District Court judge James E. Boasberg – an appointee of former president Barack Obama – issued a universal injunction last weekend demanding the administration cease deportations under the Alien Enemies Act pending judicial review.

While Boasberg verbally ordered that any deportation flights currently en route to other countries return to America, he did not include the mandate in his written order. At the time of the hearing, multiple planes containing hundreds of alleged TdA members were over international water on their way to El Salvador – which has agreed to house the detainees in exchange for compensation.

Trump’s team elected not to turn the planes around.

Boasberg’s decision, like other similarly broad injunctive orders, has been appealed by the Trump administration.

Wilson’s amicus brief petitions the federal appellate court to lift Boasberg’s injunction pending a ruling on the legality of Trump’s implementation of the act – arguing Trump lawfully exercised his authority when deporting the alleged TdA members.

“Pursuant to his constitutional and statutory authority… the President published a presidential proclamation regarding TdA on March 15, finding and declaring that TdA ‘commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking’ and that TdA ‘has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety,’ and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States,” the brief noted.

“In particular, a TdA member’s horrific murder of Laken Riley necessitated the passage of the Laken Riley Act, mandating federal detention of illegal aliens who are arrested for certain crimes,” the brief added.

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RELATED | AG PUSHES LAKEN RILEY ACT

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Wilson and his co-petitioners argued Boasberg “failed to fully consider the relevant public interests and balance of the harms in this case,” when he enjoined the administration “without the benefit of briefing from the United States or any other interested parties.”

According to the petitioners, Boasberg’s order “erred by failing to afford the President proper deference in his exercise of his statutory and constitutional powers,” something they argue violates the “important principles of separation of powers.”

The brief cited the 1948 Supreme Court ruling in Ludecke v. Watkins, which held the Alien Enemy Act precludes judicial review of the removal orders when there is a “declared war” between the United States and any foreign country

“Full responsibility for the just exercise of this great power may validly be left where the Congress has constitutionally placed it – on the President of the United States,” the court ruled.

While the TdA ruling has yet to be addressed at the Appellate or Supreme Court level, the Supreme Court declined to disempower district court judges when presented with an opportunity to clarify their role in a recent case concerning the Trump administration’s pause on foreign assistance payments.

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Dude. You nominated three of them. https://t.co/z5RUitdSh8

— FITSNews (@fitsnews) March 19, 2025

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Justice Samuel Alito issued a blistering dissent of the majority decision to avoid addressing the injunction issue.

“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) $2 billion taxpayer dollars?” his dissenting opinion asked.

“The judge brushed aside the government’s argument that sovereign immunity barred this enforcement order, and he took two steps that, unless corrected, would prevent any higher court from reviewing and possibly stopping the payments,” Alito wrote. “First, he labeled the order as a non-appealable (temporary restraining order), and second, he demanded that the money be paid within 36 hours.”

“This left the government little time to try to obtain some review of what it regarded as a lawless order,” Alito continued. “The government moved for a stay pending appeal in the District Court. But the judge shrugged off the government’s sovereign-immunity argument and ignored the government’s representation that most of the money in question, once disbursed, could probably not be recovered.”

Alito argued “it is clear that the District Court’s enforcement order should be construed as an appealable preliminary injunction, not a mere TRO. A TRO, as its name suggests, is ‘temporary,’ and its proper role is to “restrain” challenged conduct for a short time while the court considers whether more lasting relief is warranted.”

He contrasted this proper injunction with “the order here, which commanded the payment of a vast sum that in all likelihood can never be fully recovered, is in no sense ‘temporary,’ he noted that “given its likely irreversibility, the District Court’s enforcement order effectively gave respondents a portion of the ultimate relief they seek.”

“A federal court has many tools to address a party’s supposed nonfeasance,” Alito concluded. “Self-aggrandizement of its jurisdiction is not one of them. I would chart a different path than the Court does today, so I must respectfully dissent.”

Several MAGA aligned congresspeople have backed Trump’s recent calls for congress to impeach Boasberg.

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Impeach rogue judges. https://t.co/XmjQfkVFrW

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) March 18, 2025

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Lowcountry congresswoman Nancy Mace said on Fox Business she hoped House leadership would “force a vote on this.”

“These thugs, these cartel members, these illegals have to go,” Mace noted, adding that “in Chester County, South Carolina, just last month enough fentanyl was found in the home of two people to kill eight hundred thousand people.”

Mace added “the president of the United States gets the last say on foreign policy.”

While Mace’s weighing in on the issue was to be expected, Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts‘ statement rebuking Trump’s impeachment call took many by surprise.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Given the GOP’s slim legislative majorities, Mace’s hopes (and Roberts’ concerns) surrounding the legislative removal of judges from the federal bench are unlikely to materialize.

A less controversial legislative solution has been suggested in the “No Rogue Rulings Act of 2025,” which would prohibit district court judges from granting injunctive relief beyond the party seeking it in court.

Senate judiciary committee chairman Charles Grassley issued a statement supporting the bill to RealClearInvestigations.

“Allowing a single district judge to unilaterally micromanage the executive branch should raise eyebrows, to say the least,” Grassley said. “I have serious questions about district courts’ recent use of [generally non-appealable] temporary restraining orders [which Justice Alito argued deserved scrutiny] and universal injunctions to put a leash on the executive branch, and I think Congress ought to closely examine the issue.”

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RealClearInvestigations further reported the bill’s sponsors expect it will “come to the House floor ‘relatively quickly’ and pass.”

While the term “constitutional crisis” has been overused by hyperventilating, has-been mainstream media commentators, in this situation it seems there is genuine cause for alarm.

Republicans are right to express concern that unprecedented orders, 92% of which have been issued by Democrat-nominated judges, are inappropriately thwarting a duly elected president’s ability to execute his agenda while further de-legitimizing the authority of the courts in the eyes of the public.

Meanwhile, Democrats are right to express concern that Trump was willing to defy an oral order from a federal court, even if the judge erred in issuing the order.

Count on FITSNews to continue tracking this developing legal disagreement.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

(Via: Travis Bell)

Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.

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