The headline is a five-alarm fire: "One Judge Tells ICE to Stop. The Supreme Court Already Said No." [1] Read the article printed under it, and the fire goes out. The Daily Signal's own reporter admits, in his own words, that the judge did nothing the Supreme Court forbade.
Here is what actually happened. On June 23, a federal judge in California, P. Casey Pitts, struck down two Trump administration policies: one that let ICE arrest immigrants at courthouses, and one that let the government hold them for up to 72 hours instead of the longstanding 12. [3][4] He did it through "vacatur" under the Administrative Procedure Act, the law that lets a court throw out an agency rule it finds "arbitrary and capricious." [4] Not a nationwide injunction. Vacatur. That distinction is the entire case.
THE HEADLINE "One Judge Tells ICE to Stop. The Supreme Court Already Said No."
- The Daily Signal, June 30 [1]
What the Supreme Court actually said
The headline leans on Trump v. CASA, the June 2025 decision that curbed nationwide injunctions. [1] Here is the part it skips. The CASA majority went out of its way to say it was not deciding whether the APA lets a court vacate an agency rule. In the Court's own words, "nothing" in the decision "resolves the distinct question whether the [APA] authorizes courts to vacate federal agency action." [2] The Court limited one tool, the injunction, and expressly left the other, APA vacatur, untouched. Judge Pitts used the tool the Court left open.
The tell is in their own article
This is not our reading of it. It is theirs. The Daily Signal's own body text concedes the point: the judge "isn't operating in defiance of CASA - he's operating in the gap the court left open," and "the CASA majority explicitly left APA remedies intact." [1] The reporter wrote the refutation of his own headline and ran both on the same page.
THE TELL The Daily Signal's own article: the judge "isn't operating in defiance of CASA - he's operating in the gap the court left open." [1]
What the ruling actually restored
Strip away the framing and here are the human stakes. For years, ICE could hold someone in a short-term room for up to 12 hours. In June 2025 the administration waived that cap and pushed it to 72. [3][4] Judge Pitts vacated the waiver and put the 12-hour limit back. [3]
Data
| Limit restored by the ruling | 12 hrs |
|---|---|
| Limit ICE had allowed | 72 hrs |
The bottom line
A judge used a remedy the Supreme Court specifically preserved, and a national outlet told its readers the Supreme Court had banned it, then admitted, further down, that it had not. "Rogue judge defies SCOTUS" makes a good headline. It is not what happened here, and the people who wrote it said so themselves.
THE BOTTOM LINE The Supreme Court limited nationwide injunctions and left APA vacatur intact. The judge used APA vacatur. The Court did not say no.
