“Claiming one emergency after another, the government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming limited court resources in each,” she wrote. “And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow.”

The court’s earlier order, she said, at least had the virtue of blocking a nationwide injunction, a form of relief that has been criticized by judges and scholars.

Indeed, two members of the court — Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas — issued a concurrence in last month’s case indicating that the central problem was the geographic scope of the injunction.

“It has become increasingly apparent that this court must, at some point, confront these important objections to this increasingly widespread practice,” Justice Gorsuch wrote. “As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates, the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.”

“I concur in the court’s decision to issue a stay,” Justice Gorsuch continued. “But I hope, too, that we might at an appropriate juncture take up some of the underlying equitable and constitutional questions raised by the rise of nationwide injunctions.”