They are called universal injunctions and they are not allowed (Updated and Moved to Top)

Trump v. CASA is out. Universal injunctions are impermissible. And, in a footnote, the Court says they should be called universal (rather than nationwide) because that captures the problem. The Court does not touch the merits of birthright citizenship. And it does not reject the injunction in this case; it stays it only to the extent it is broader than necessary to give the plaintiff states complete relief. But the states argue that it is not overbroad because the nature of citizenship and the ability of people to move across state lines requires an injunction that protects beyond the plaintiff states; the Court remands for that analysis.

It is 119 pages, with concurring opinions from Thomas, Alito and Kavanague and dissents from Sotomayor and Jackson; Sotomayor read her dissent (which sounds like a barn-burner) from the bench. Will have more once I read this (and the other opinions coming today).

Update: OK, I have given it a preliminary read, along with early comments from Mike Dorf and Sam Bray. TL;DR of the opinions:

Barrett: Everything Sam Bray says in his 2017 Harvard piece (the article that started this scholarly conversation) is right. (A friend asked if this was a Notre Dame Law School thing--but I think Barrett was on the bench before Sam got there). There are policy arguments on both sides, but we do not care because it is all about the history.

Thomas (with Gorsuch): "Complete relief" is the ceiling, not the floor--a court cannot grant more-than-complete relief but can grant less-than-complete relief. Also a remedy can protect non-parties through indivisibility only when party-specific relief is "all but impossible;” that is a high bar and courts better not use incidental benefits to revive universality.

Alito (with Thomas): While we're at it, get ride of third-party standing and do not forget that FRCP 23 is narrow and it should be difficult to certify classes.

Justice Kavanaugh: Universal vacatur survives (spoken like a D.C. Circuit alumnus). SCOTUS provides practical universality through precedent via more-aggressive use of the shadow docket.

Justice Jackson: 1) Dispute resolution is incidental to federal courts' primary role of declaring the law, not the other way around. 2) Rule-of-law in a non-monarchy establishes and requires judicial supremacy and anything else is lawless (as Barrett puts it, Jackson "offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush").

Editorial comments:

• I am pleased to win the nomenclature battle.

• The Thomas and Alito concurrences reflect fissures within the six-Justice majority. Three reject the states' argument that the broad injunction they seek is necessary to afford complete relief. Two suggest that class certification should be narrow and rare. As Steve Vladeck argues, one cannot reject universal injunctions and narrow Rule 23; plaintiffs and courts need some mechanism to reach and stop wide-ranging misconduct that causes wide-ranging, identical harm to similarly situated people. The question is whether this represents genuine fissures among the six (such that at least two among Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett will join Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson to uphold class challenges to birthright citizenship and other constitutionally defective Trump policies) or whether this is those four exercising "restraint" in not tipping their hands on unnecessary issues, whereas Thomas and Alito want to put their views out there.

• I would have expected Alito to also target associational standing as means of expanding the scope of litigation and thus the scope of the remedies. After all, the individual plaintiff here is CASA, an organization suing on behalf of its more than 150,000 members

• That is a typical Kavanaugh "please like me, here are all the ways the decision will not be so bad" opinion. He is right that SCOTUS gets to a universal outcome through precedent rather than judgment and remedy. That said, expanding the shadow docket so the Court can--speedily, on limited briefing, and without explanation--superintend the scope of every injunction seems to exacerbate the shadow-docket problems. To tamp this down, Kavanaugh introduces a new concept demanding closer SCOTUS scrutiny in lieu of universality--"major new" (a term he uses 24 times in less than 12 pages) statutes and executive actions. Of course, he fails to define what qualifies as "major new" legal rules. His examples include pretty much every challenged federal enactment of the past decade, meaning SCOTUS should use the shadow docket for every federal enactment that draws a constitutional challenge.

• If one rejects judicial supremacy, Jackson's opinion is hard to read (speaking as someone who genuinely likes her writing). She accepts, without defending, that "the law" is whatever one district court says it is and the executive acts in a lawless manner by acting inconsistent with that judicial determination. So it begs multiple questions throughout in speaking of the law, and disobeying the law, and what things are blatantly unconstitutional, without explaining who decides any of this.

• Jackson offers two lines that are nonsensical. 1) The judicial power is especially great with respect to suits against the executive--except all constitutional litigation runs against the executive (or a non-executive officer performing an executive function). 2) Concern for "blatantly unconstitutional" laws. But constitutional invalidity is like pregnancy--you cannot have just a little bit of it. And she never explains when invalidity crosses that line into "blatancy."  Ironically,she offers an example--an executive who orders incarceration of his political foes--that fails on its own procedural  terms; that challenge would sound in habeas (if they seek release from custody) and not an EpY action for any sort of injunction, universal or otherwise.

• Beyond that, no one can offer any lines for when universality is proper that do not collapse into "every injunction" or "every injunction involving immigration" or "every injunction involving federal law."

• None of the Justices pursue any form of departmentalism. All accept that the courts (especially SCOTUS) get the last word. The only departure is how the Court expresses that last word--for everyone or for the parties (pending precedent and future litigation). Jackson and some of the online commentary equate departmentalism with a return to monarchical tyranny.

• Some nice online discussion about whether to teach this case, whether in Civ Pro or Fed Courts. I think Jackson's opinion illustrates the "law declaration" model of federal courts in a stark way.

• Plaintiffs in several birthright-citizenship cases have already filed amended complaints seeking class certification. Meanwhile, in the latest episode of "the media sucks," they are engaged in stenography of Trump's victory lap, as if the Court declared his EO valid or even suggested that he is right on birthright citizenship.

• One more thing: To everyone complaining that the end of universal injunctions represents "an alarming development for our constitutional republic" (sorry to pick on the excellent Chris Geidner, many people are doing this): What would your reaction be if the Court reached the same conclusion--narrowed injunction remains in place--in the Mifepristone case or the DACA case or any of the challenges to Obama and Biden policies? Would taking away Judge Kaczmarek's power to enjoin all enforcement of a Democratic president's policies be an "alarming developing for our constitutional republic?" If your answer is no, the explanation must be something other than "Kaczmarek was wrong;" as with challenges to S.B. 8, substantive objections cannot drive procedural arguments.