Overview

• Friday’s decision keeps in place Chief Justice John Roberts’ Sept. 9 administrative stay and halts Judge Amir Ali’s order to obligate funds before the Sept. 30 fiscal-year deadline.
• The majority’s brief order notes a likely bar to the suit under the Impoundment Control Act and gives greater weight to asserted harms to the executive’s conduct of foreign affairs.
• Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, warning the freeze will let the appropriations expire and undercut Congress’s power of the purse.
• The administration is using a late “pocket rescission” covering $4.9 billion while telling courts it will still obligate about $6.5 billion in other aid before month’s end.
• Litigation continues in the lower courts even as the fiscal clock runs down, and the ruling adds to a growing list of administration wins obtained through emergency Supreme Court relief.