Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23a814_febh.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  601 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

BARRETT, J., concurring 

Marine  Polymer  Technologies,  Inc.  v.  HemCon,  Inc.,  395 
Fed. Appx. 701 (CA Fed. 2010). 

That such stays are “administrative” does not mean they 
are value neutral.  Their point is to minimize harm while 
an appellate court deliberates, so the choice to issue an ad-
ministrative stay reflects a first-blush judgment about the 
relative consequences of staying the lower court judgment
versus allowing it go to into effect.2  Take this case.  Texas 
argues  that  the  District  Court’s  injunction  of  S. B.  4  pre-
vents it from addressing an escalating crisis at the border;
the  United  States  argues  that  S. B.  4  undermines  foreign 
relations and injures its sovereign interest in enforcing fed-
eral  law,  including  those  provisions  granting  certain  mi-
grants reprieve from removal.3  In the end, the Fifth Circuit 
might decide that the Nken factors favor the United States 
and decline to stay the injunction pending appeal.  But for 
the  brief  period  of  uncertainty—i.e.,  the  time  it  takes  the 
court to deliberate—the Fifth Circuit apparently concluded 

—————— 

2 Courts (including this Court) have sometimes described stays as de-
vices meant to maintain the status quo.  See, e.g., Nken v. Holder, 556 
U. S. 418, 429 (2009) (“A stay ‘simply suspend[s] judicial alteration of the 
status quo.’ ” (quoting Ohio Citizens for Responsible Energy, Inc. v. NRC, 
479 U. S. 1312, 1313 (1986) (Scalia, J., in chambers))).  That is a tricky
metric, because there is no settled way of defining “the status quo.”  See 
Bayefsky 1945 (“[I]t is not always easy to ascertain what counts as the 
status  quo”).    Compare  Prometheus  Radio  Project  v.  F.C.C.,  2003  WL 
22052896,  *1  (CA3,  Sept.  3,  2003)  (per  curiam);  Doe  #1 v.  Trump,  944 
F. 3d 1222, 1223 (CA9 2019) (defining status quo as the state of affairs 
prior to the challenged law or rule), with Veasey v. Abbott, 870 F. 3d 387, 
392 (CA5 2017) (per curiam); Golden Gate Restaurant Assn. v. City and 
Cty. of San Francisco, 512 F. 3d 1112, 1116–1117 (CA9 2008) (defining
status quo as the state of affairs prior to judicial intervention).  The “sta-
tus quo” in this case is not self-evident.  Is it the day before Texas enacted 
S. B. 4?  The day before the lawsuit was filed?  The day Texas’s appeal
and stay motion was docketed in the Fifth Circuit? 

3 The private applicants argue that S. B. 4 will increase the cost of op-

erating their organizations.