The Supreme Court wrestled on Thursday with the Trump administration’s complaints that federal judges have exceeded their authority in temporarily blocking some of his policy moves for the whole country.
Several of the justices appeared torn between two concerns. They appeared skeptical that single district judges should have the power to freeze executive actions throughout the nation.
But they also seemed troubled by the legality — and consequences — of the executive order underlying the case: an order issued by President Trump on his first day in office ending birthright citizenship, or the granting of automatic citizenship to all babies born in the United States.
Three lower federal judges have said Mr. Trump’s order violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution as well as longstanding precedent and blocked the policy across the country. In an unusual move, the justices had agreed to hear oral argument on whether the judges should have limited their rulings only to the states, advocacy groups and individuals that had sued over the order.
The Trump administration had asked the justices to consider the legality of such injunctions, which have been a major impediment to Mr. Trump’s agenda.
But the justices appeared to struggle with how they might quickly weigh in on the legality of the order, which the administration had not asked them to review.
“This case is very different from a lot of our nationwide injunction cases in which many of us have expressed frustration at the way district courts are doing their business,” Justice Elena Kagan said, appearing to articulate the view of several of the justices. She noted that such injunctions have been used to block policies under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
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