Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, No. 25A269. September 26, 2025. The Supreme Court granted the government’s application for a stay. Quote, verified: “The District Court’s September 3, 2025 order granting a preliminary injunction in case Nos. 1:25–cv–400 and 1:25–cv–402 is stayed as to the funding subject to the President’s August 28 special message,” pending D.C. Circuit appeal and any timely certiorari petition.
The Court wrote that the government, “at this early stage, has made a sufficient showing that the Impoundment Control Act precludes respondents’ suit, brought pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, to enforce the appropriations at issue here.” It also wrote that asserted harms to the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs appeared to outweigh potential harm to respondents. Then: “This order should not be read as a final determination on the merits.”
Justice Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson. A stay is a pause. It is not a holding that Ali invented a crime, and it is not a holding that the President may always impound. It is the Court stopping part of a district-court injunction on funds the President had asked Congress to rescind.
The February TRO and the March 5 denial of vacatur remain separate documents. Do not rewrite March as a later stay, and do not rewrite September as a vacatur of the February TRO.