How the Supreme Court Stacked the Shadow Docket Deck for Trump

The Government has also demonstrated that it would likely suffer irreparable harm if the District Court’s injunction is not stayed. As the Court has indicated, “‘“ny time” ’” that the Government is “‘“enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.”’” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U. S. ___, ___ (2025) (slip op., at 25) (quoting Maryland v. King, 567 U. S. 1301, 1303 (2012) (ROBERTS, C. J., in chambers)).

“So it is in this case, particularly given the millions of individuals illegally in the United States, the myriad ‘significant economic and social problems’ caused by illegal immigration, and the Government’s efforts to prioritize stricter enforcement of the immigration laws enacted by Congress,” he continued, tipping his hand on what he thought of the merits. Except the plaintiffs in this case were not challenging any “statues enacted by representatives of people”—they were challenging alleged racial profiling by armed and masked executive branch officials.

The overall result here is a sudden inversion of how the court balances the equities in ongoing litigation. Instead of weighing the irreparable harms to both parties, as well as the other traditional relevant factors for these shadow docket cases, the Roberts court has given the federal government a potent card to play against litigants who want to stop ongoing harms.

And while the King line is a purportedly democratic principle that exalts the legislative process, its current breadth suggests otherwise. It is the Constitution that allows Congress to pass laws and the executive branch to enforce them. The Roberts court’s professed deference to statutes and elected representatives is now being used by the Trump administration to violate Americans’ rights while months or years of litigation take place, so long as they claim they are enforcing a law along the way. It is serendipitous that Roberts’s formulation came in a case titled Maryland v. King, because the King line effectively allows the president to rule as one.