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- We now turn to the preliminary injunctions barring enforcement of the §2(c) entry suspension. We grant the Government’s applications to stay the injunctions, to the extent the injunctions prevent enforcement of §2(c) with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States. We leave the injunctions entered by the lower courts in place with respect to respondents and those similarly situated,as specified in this opinion. See infra, at 11–12. Crafting a preliminary injunction is an exercise of discretion and judgment, often dependent as much on the equities of a given case as the substance of the legal issues it presents. See Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S. 7, 20, 24 (2008); 11A C. Wright, A.Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §2948(3d ed. 2013). The purpose of such interim equitable relief is not to conclusively determine the rights of the parties, University of Tex. v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 395 (1981), but to balance the equities as the litigation moves forward.In awarding a preliminary injunction a court must also “conside[r] . . . the overall public interest.” Winter, supra, at 26. In the course of doing so, a court “need not grant the total relief sought by the applicant but may mold its]
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- decree to meet the exigencies of the particular case.”Wright, supra, §2947, at 115.Here, of course, we are not asked to grant a preliminary injunction, but to stay one. In assessing the lower courts’ exercise of equitable discretion, we bring to bear an equitable judgment of our own. Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 433 (2009). Before issuing a stay, “[i]t is ultimately necessary . . . to balance the equities—to explore the relative harms to applicant and respondent, as well as the interests of the public at large.” Barnes v. E-Systems, Inc. Group Hospital Medical & Surgical Ins. Plan, 501 U. S. 1301, 1305 (1991) (Scalia, J., in chambers) (internal quota-tion marks omitted). This Court may, in its discretion, tailor a stay so that it operates with respect to only “some portion of the proceeding.” Nken, supra, at 428.
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- The Ninth Circuit concluded that §2(c) would harm the State by preventing students from the desig- nated nations who had been admitted to the University of Hawaii from entering this country. These hardships, thecourts reasoned, were sufficiently weighty and immediate to outweigh the Government’s interest in enforcing §2(c).Having adopted this view of the equities, the courts ap-proved injunctions that covered not just respondents, but parties similarly situated to them—that is, people or entities in the United States who have relationships with foreign nationals abroad, and whose rights might be af-fected if those foreign nationals were excluded. See Man-del, 408 U. S., at 763–765 (permitting American plaintiffsto challenge the exclusion of a foreign national on the
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- ground that the exclusion violated their own First Amendment rights).But the injunctions reach much further than that: Theyalso bar enforcement of §2(c) against foreign nationals abroad who have no connection to the United States at all. The equities relied on by the lower courts do not balancethe same way in that context. Denying entry to such a foreign national does not burden any American party byreason of that party’s relationship with the foreign national. And the courts below did not conclude that exclusion in such circumstances would impose any legally relevanthardship on the foreign national himself. See id., at 762 (“[A]n unadmitted and nonresident alien . . . ha[s] no constitutional right of entry to this country”). So whatever burdens may result from enforcement of §2(c) against aforeign national who lacks any connection to this country,they are, at a minimum, a good deal less concrete than thehardships identified by the courts below.At the same time, the Government’s interest in enforc-ing §2(c), and the Executive’s authority to do so, are un-doubtedly at their peak when there is no tie between theforeign national and the United States. Indeed, EO–2 itself distinguishes between foreign nationals who have some connection to this country, and foreign nationals who do not, by establishing a case-by-case waiver system pri-marily for the benefit of individuals in the former cate- gory. See, e.g., §§3(c)(i)–(vi). The interest in preservingnational security is “an urgent objective of the highest order.” Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U. S. 1, 28 (2010). To prevent the Government from pursuing that objective by enforcing §2(c) against foreign nationalsunconnected to the United States would appreciably injureits interests, without alleviating obvious hardship to anyone else. We accordingly grant the Government’s stay applica-tions in part and narrow the scope of the injunctions as to
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- In practical terms, this means that §2(c) may not be en-forced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in theUnited States. All other foreign nationals are subject to the provisions of EO–2.The facts of these cases illustrate the sort of relationship that qualifies. For individuals, a close familial relation-ship is required. A foreign national who wishes to enter the United States to live with or visit a family member,like Doe’s wife or Dr. Elshikh’s mother-in-law, clearly has such a relationship. As for entities, the relationship mustbe formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading EO–2.
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- The Hawaii injunction extends beyond §2(c) to bar enforcement of the §6(a) suspension of refugee admissions and the §6(b) refugee cap. In our view, the equitablebalance struck above applies in this context as well. An American individual or entity that has a bona fide rela-tionship with a particular person seeking to enter the country as a refugee can legitimately claim concrete hard-ship if that person is excluded. As to these individuals and entities, we do not disturb the injunction. But when it comes to refugees who lack any such connection to the United States, for the reasons we have set out, the balance tips in favor of the Government’s compelling need to pro-vide for the Nation’s security. See supra, at 9–11; Haig v. Agee, 453 U. S. 280, 307 (1981)
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- JUSTICE THOMAS DISSENTING OPINION WITH ALITO AND GORSUCH CONCURRING
- JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE ALITO and JUSTICE GORSUCH join, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I agree with the Court that the preliminary injunctionsentered in these cases should be stayed, although I would stay them in full. The decision whether to stay the injunc-tions is committed to our discretion, ante, at 9–10, but our discretion must be “guided by sound legal principles,” Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 434 (2009) (internal quota-tion marks omitted). The two “most critical” factors we must consider in deciding whether to grant a stay are “(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits” and “(2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured
- absent a stay.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Where a party seeks a stay pending certiorari, as here, theapplicant satisfies the first factor only if it can show both“a reasonable probability that certiorari will be granted”and “a significant possibility that the judgment below willbe reversed.” Barnes v. E-Systems, Inc. Group Hospital Medical & Surgical Ins. Plan, 501 U. S. 1301, 1302 (1991) (Scalia, J., in chambers). When we determine that those critical factors are satisfied, we must “balance the equi-ties” by “explor[ing] the relative harms to applicant and respondent, as well as the interests of the public at large.” Id., at 1304–1305 (internal quotation marks omitted); cf. Nken, supra, at 435 (noting that the factors of “assessing the harm to the opposing party and weighing the public interest” “merge when the Government is the opposingparty”).The Government has satisfied the standard for issuing a stay pending certiorari. We have, of course, decided to grant certiorari. See ante, at 8–9. And I agree with theCourt’s implicit conclusion that the Government has madea strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the mer-its—that is, that the judgments below will be reversed. The Government has also established that failure to stay the injunctions will cause irreparable harm by interfering with its “compelling need to provide for the Nation’s secu-rity.” Ante, at 13. Finally, weighing the Government’s interest in preserving national security against the hard-ships caused to respondents by temporary denials of entry into the country, the balance of the equities favors the Government. I would thus grant the Government’s appli-cations for a stay in their entirety
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- Reasonable minds may disagree on where the balance of equities lies as between the Government and respondentsin these cases. It would have been reasonable, perhaps, for the Court to have left the injunctions in place only as to respondents themselves. But the Court takes the addi-
- tional step of keeping the injunctions in place with regardto an unidentified, unnamed group of foreign nationalsabroad. No class has been certified, and neither party asks for the scope of relief that the Court today provides. “[I]njunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs” in the case, Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979) (emphasis added), because a court’s role is“to provide relief ” only “to claimants . . . who have suf-fered, or will imminently suffer, actual harm.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 349 (1996). In contrast, it is the role of the “political branches” to “shape the institutions of government in such fashion as to comply with the laws and the Constitution.” Ibid. Moreover, I fear that the Court’s remedy will proveunworkable. Today’s compromise will burden executiveofficials with the task of deciding—on peril of contempt—whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connec-tion to a person or entity in this country. See ante, at 11– 12. The compromise also will invite a flood of litigation until this case is finally resolved on the merits, as parties and courts struggle to determine what exactly constitutesa “bona fide relationship,” who precisely has a “credibleclaim” to that relationship, and whether the claimedrelationship was formed “simply to avoid §2(c)” of Execu-tive Order No. 13780, ante, at 11, 12. And litigation of thefactual and legal issues that are likely to arise will pre-sumably be directed to the two District Courts whose initial orders in these cases this Court has now— unanimously—found sufficiently questionable to be stayed as to the vast majority of the people potentially affected
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