SCOTUS deals huge blow to judges' power to rein in Trump in birthright citizenship case
The Supreme Court, in a victory for the Trump administration, limited the authority of individual federal judges Friday to issue nationwide injunctions against government actions that a judge has found to be illegal.
The court deferred action on President Donald Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children, including the children of undocumented immigrants.
But the decision deals a blow to individual judges' ability to rein in lawless actions by Trump or future presidents.
'Congress has granted federal courts no such power,' Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, wrote in the 6-3 ruling.
Since Trump returned to office in January, she said, federal judges have issued about 25 nationwide injunctions against his orders and policies.
Friday's ruling, on the last day of the court's 2024-25 term, did not prohibit nationwide injunctions altogether. Instead, Barrett said the orders Trump challenged on birthright citizenship must be blocked until lower courts decide whether they can be narrowed or must be overturned.
Three federal judges have issued nationwide injunctions preventing Trump from enforcing his order against birthright citizenship. This follows a trend in recent years of a president's opponents seeking sympathetic judges to issue court orders halting executive actions.
During Barack Obama's administration, a federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked the president from telling government agencies that they were legally required to let transgender visitors use restrooms that corresponded with their gender identity.
During Trump's first administration, U.S. District Court judges issued injunctions blocking his executive orders that banned U.S. entry from a group of mostly Muslim-majority nations, orders that the Supreme Court eventually upheld after the president narrowed their scope.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick III of San Francisco barred the administration from cutting off funding to 'sanctuary cities' that did not allow their police to cooperate with immigration agents, a ruling the Supreme Court upheld.
And other judges issued nationwide orders, over Trump's objections, continuing the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which allows undocumented immigrants to live and work in the U.S. if they entered the country before age 16, had attended school or served in the military and had no serious criminal record.
Although the case began as a challenge by Trump to birthright citizenship, the administration's lawyers asked the court to consider that issue in a future case after lower courts have reviewed it. The Supreme Court agreed.
The Constitution's 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 after the Civil War, grants citizenship to 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' except for children born to foreign diplomats or to soldiers of invading armies.
The Trump administration's Justice Department argued that children whose parents were undocumented immigrants or visitors to the U.S. were not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the nation and therefore could be denied citizenship.
But California and 18 other states that challenged Trump's action said those children were bound by U.S. laws, including criminal laws, and were clearly under the nation's 'jurisdiction.' They also cited the Supreme Court's 1898 ruling upholding the U.S. citizenship of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to parents who had immigrated from China.
In that ruling, a 6-2 court majority said the 14th Amendment 'affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, including all children born here of resident aliens.' The court reaffirmed the decision in a pair of cases in 1982 and 1985 that upheld citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.
Trump's nationwide order enforcing his rollback of birthright citizenship has been blocked by federal judges in Washington state, Maryland and Massachusetts in lawsuits by Democratic-controlled states and the city of San Francisco and by immigrant-rights advocates.
At the Supreme Court's hearing in May, D. John Sauer, the Justice Department's solicitor general, said the Trump administration would argue against birthright citizenship in lower federal courts before bringing the issue to the high court. Sauer focused instead on challenging the authority of individual federal judges in the citizenship case and others to issue injunctions ordering a nationwide halt to policies the judges considered unconstitutional.
That practice 'encourages rampant court-shopping,' Sauer said, arguing that only the individuals who filed the suits should be allowed to benefit from the rulings while they are being appealed.
But if that happened, said the states' lawyer, New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum, children and their families would rapidly migrate to states that recognized their citizenship. 'Our country has never allowed citizenship to vary based on the state in which one resides,' he told the court.
The cases are Trump v. Casa Inc., No. 24A884; Trump v. Washington, No. 24A885; and Trump v. New Jersey, No. 24A886.
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