District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALM)

The U.S. Justice Department is advancing "bad faith" arguments to limit the scope of injunctions issued against government agencies, a Washington federal trial judge said in blocking new Trump administration rules that would have let authorities more broadly speed up the deportation of immigrants.

District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's decision late Friday, the latest rebuke of the Trump administration's anti-immigration maneuvering, came with a broad discussion of the merits of nationwide injunctions, which the Justice Department has criticized in court, public appearances and opinion articles. Jackson's ruling in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia forcefully pushed back against the Trump administration's crusade to end nationwide injunctions.

"It reeks of bad faith, demonstrates contempt for the authority that the Constitution's Framers have vested in the judicial branch, and, ultimately, deprives successful plaintiffs of the full measure of the remedy to which they are entitled," Jackson, an Obama appointee, wrote in her ruling.

Justice Department lawyers, including U.S. Attorney General William Barr, contend federal trial judges exceed their authority when they bind parties nationwide beyond the individuals and groups appearing in a case before the court. Judges have issued more than two dozen national injunctions against the Trump administration, fueling frustration among Justice Department leaders.

The U.S. Supreme Court this term is expected to take a fresh look at nationwide injunctions when the justices examine rulings that stopped the Trump administration from ending an Obama-era immigration program benefiting immigrants who arrived as children in the U.S. "Far from solving the problem, the DACA injunction proved catastrophic," Barr said recently. "The program's recipients remain in legal limbo after nearly two years of bitter political division over immigration, including a government shutdown."

Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing regarding the Department of Justice's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, on Wednesday, May 1, 2019. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM)

A Justice Department spokesperson said about Jackson's opinion: "Congress expressly authorized the Secretary of Homeland Security to act with dispatch to remove from the country aliens who have no right to be here. The district court's decision squarely conflicts with that express grant of authority and vastly exceeds the district court's own authority."

Earlier this month, senior Justice Department lawyer Beth Williams, head of the office of legal policy, argued in public remarks that the "equitable remedies" of an injunction "must be no broader than necessary to afford complete relief to the plaintiff." Williams continued: "By definition, nationwide injunctions—which often afford relief that is broader than necessary to cure the alleged injury—exceed this time-honored limitation on the scope of equitable power."

In Friday's ruling, Jackson described as "troubling" the idea that a narrow injunction—applying only to the immediate parties in a case—would allow a federal agency to carry out presumably invalid new rules and regulations across the country.

"A world in which this court would be required to order an administrative agency to isolate the effects of a procedurally invalid rule and terminate its impacts only with respect to a particular plaintiff has lots of slippery slopes," Jackson wrote.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, represented by Main Justice, "has no good answer to the obvious practical problems that partial invalidation of agency rules—including and especially rules that pertain to food, air, and water—would pose," Jackson said.

Arguments supporting limited injunctions, Jackson said, appear "to reflect a spirit of defiance of judicial authority in the aftermath of defeat that is not easily reconciled with established constitutional norms or with standard, good faith practices that seek to ensure that a successful plaintiff is made whole."

"In sum, and sternly put, the argument that an administrative agency should be permitted to side-step the required result of a fair-fought fight about well-established statutory constraints on agency action is a terrible proposal that is patently inconsistent with the dictates of the law," Jackson wrote.

Jackson's ruling against the Trump administration focused on whether and how the government ignored requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act. Jackson concluded the Trump administration failed to engage in "notice and comment" before announcing plans in July to implement an expedited removal scheme. Jackson issued a preliminary injunction that blocks "the expedited removal policy to anyone to whom it would apply."

Lawyers at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and the American Civil Liberties Union represent the challengers in the fast-track deportation case. Any Justice Department appeal will mark the latest chance for a panel of judges to scrutinize the scope of a nationwide injunction.

A new law review article by Mila Sohoni, a former Jenner & Block associate who clerked for Judge Judith Rogers on the D.C. Circuit, questioned critics of nationwide injunctions who contend they do not have a long history in the law.

"Injunctions that shielded nonparties formed at least a part of the output of the federal courts as far back as 1913, and that even before then—in the 1890s—the [Supreme] Court understood a lower federal court 'sitting in equity' as empowered to offer a 'comprehensive decree covering the whole ground of controversy' that would 'determine once for all' the legality of a state law for 'the entire community,'" Sohoni wrote.

The Supreme Court itself has endorsed or granted injunctions that shielded nonparties, she added. Those decisions are significant not just for their substance and age but because "they were the work product of Supreme Court justices who had been practicing lawyers in an era when equity was a living, flourishing thing," according to Sohoni.

Read more:

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Clarence Thomas, Alone, Asserts National Injunctions Are 'Historically Dubious'

Federal Appeals Judge: Don't End Nationwide Injunctions. (But Here's a Plan.)

DOJ Policy Head Scolds 'Dogged Determination' to Enjoin Trump