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USA Today
4 hours ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Supreme Court's birthright citizenship opinion reveals rising hostility, tension
In a single line, Justice Amy Coney Barrett simultaneously dismissed the opinion of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson while also levying a legitimate criticism against her dissent. On June 27, the Supreme Court put an end to universal injunctions, orders that allowed for federal judges to block executive orders from going into effect against anyone in the country. Beyond the merits of Justice Amy Coney Barrett's majority opinion, signed on to by all six conservative justices, the tone of her opinion was uniquely hostile against the court's liberal wing, namely Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Barrett orchestrated a complete smackdown of Jackson's dissent. The overtly hostile nature of Barrett's attack on Jackson reveals heightened tensions within the Supreme Court. Barrett's hostilities toward Jackson reveal tensions in Supreme Court In her majority opinion, Barrett repeatedly calls out Jackson by name, a practice often avoided by the writers of majority opinions, who opt to criticize 'the dissent' as a general category instead. Justices accosting each other by name is rare – even in Justice Neil Gorsuch's own spat with Jackson just a few days prior, he was not this hostile. Jackson's dissent isn't heroic. It exposes big problem with Supreme Court. | Opinion Even as the dissents have tended to be on the dramatic side in recent years, rarely have they become outright hostile toward one another. However, Barrett in particular seems to be fed up with Jackson's liberal jurisprudence. 'We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,' Barrett wrote for the majority. 'We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.' In a single line, Barrett simultaneously dismisses the opinion of Jackson while also levying a legitimate criticism against her dissent. Jackson advocates for universal injunctions as a check against presidential overreach, but trading in one branch's overreach of their authority for another's does not produce a balanced system of government. Opinion: Trump gets a win on injunctions, but will birthright citizenship order hold? In the judicial equivalent of the People's Elbow, Barrett uses Jackson's own words against her to further advance that point. 'JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: '[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.' That goes for judges too.' Barrett's critiques of Jackson reveal a growing tension between the court's two youngest judges, who in all likelihood will be serving alongside each other for the next couple of decades. Just three years into their tenure together, Barrett is already fed up with Jackson's misunderstanding of the constitutional role of judges. Barrett and Jackson disagree over the role of judges Today's argument reveals a stark difference in the judicial philosophies of Barrett and Jackson. Their chief disagreement on the issue of nationwide injunctions is whether they are the constitutionally proper form of relief against executive actions suspected of being unconstitutional. Barrett contends that 'The universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation's history.' 'Universal injunctions were not a feature of federal court litigation until sometime in the 20th century,' Barrett wrote in her majority opinion. 'Yet such injunctions remained rare until the turn of the 21st century, when their use gradually accelerated.' Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. The primary dissent, authored by Justice Sonya Sotomayor and signed on to by all three liberal justices, charges that 'By stripping all federal courts, including itself, of that power, the Court kneecaps the Judiciary's authority to stop the Executive from enforcing even the most unconstitutional policies.' Jackson filed a separate dissenting opinion, in addition to her joining of Sotomayor's, which goes further. 'In a constitutional Republic such as ours, a federal court has the power to order the Executive to follow the law — and it must,' Jackson wrote in her dissent. 'Made up of 'free, impartial, and independent' judges and justices, the Judiciary checks the political branches of Government by explaining what the law is and 'securing obedience' with it.' Both dissents insist this decision gives the executive branch unbound authority to act unconstitutionally without any check against it. But it's not as if universal injunctions are the only option for relief. As the conservatives in the majority highlight, traditional class action lawsuits offer relief in a similar way to these injunctions, but with a higher procedural burden than sweeping judicial orders. The issue with injunctions is that they are a blunt instrument, often used in cases that require a scalpel. The conservatives on the court understand that these orders exceed the constitutional role of judges and are willing to rein them in because of that. The liberal justices are comfortable with combating executive overreach with judicial overreach. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
India Today
5 hours ago
- Politics
- India Today
Supreme Court curbs nationwide injunctions in win for Trump's immigration agenda
A united conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled Friday that federal judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, but the decision left unclear whether President Donald Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship could soon take effect in parts of the outcome represented a victory for Trump, who has complained about judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda. Nationwide, or universal, injunctions had emerged as an important check on the Republican president's efforts to expand executive power and remake the government and a source of mounting frustration to him and his the court left open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked nationwide. Trump's order would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally or temporarily. The cases now return to lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the high court ruling, which was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Enforcement of the policy can't take place for another 30 days, Barrett justices agreed with the Trump administration, as well as President Joe Biden's Democratic administration before it, that judges are overreaching by issuing orders that apply to everyone instead of just the parties before the court. Judges have issued more than 40 such orders since Trump took office for a second term in administration has filed emergency appeals with the justices of many of those orders, including the ones on birthright citizenship. The court rarely hears arguments and issues major decisions on its emergency, or shadow, docket, but it did so in this courts, Barrett wrote, 'do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them. When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.'The president, speaking in the White House briefing room, said that the decision was 'amazing' and a 'monumental victory for the Constitution,' the separation of powers and the rule of Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York wrote on X that the decision is 'an unprecedented and terrifying step toward authoritarianism, a grave danger to our democracy, and a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court.'Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent for the three liberal justices, called the decision 'nothing less than an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution.' This is so, Sotomayor said, because the administration may be able to enforce a policy even when it has been challenged and found to be unconstitutional by a lower administration didn't even ask, as it has in other cases, for the lower-court rulings to be blocked completely, Sotomayor wrote. 'To get such relief, the government would have to show that the order is likely constitutional, an impossible task,' she the ultimate fate of the changes Trump wants to make was not before the court, Barrett wrote, just the rules that would apply as the court cases groups that sued over the policy filed new court documents following the high court ruling, taking up a suggestion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh that judges may still be able to reach anyone potentially affected by the birthright citizenship order by declaring them part of a 'putative nationwide class.' Kavanaugh was part of the court majority on Friday but wrote a separate concurring that also challenged the policy in court said they would try to show that the only way to effectively protect their interests was through a nationwide hold.'We have every expectation we absolutely will be successful in keeping the 14th Amendment as the law of the land and of course birthright citizenship as well,' said Attorney General Andrea Campbell of citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution's 14th a notable Supreme Court decision from 1898, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the court held that the only children who did not automatically receive U.S. citizenship upon being born on U.S. soil were the children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American U.S. is amongst about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or 'right of the soil' — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are amongst and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen, which he called 'a priceless and profound gift' in the executive order he signed on his first day in Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States, a phrase used in the amendment, and therefore are not entitled to states, immigrants and rights groups that have sued to block the executive order have accused the administration of trying to unsettle the broader understanding of birthright citizenship that has been accepted since the amendment's have uniformly ruled against the Justice Department has argued that individual judges lack the power to give nationwide effect to their Trump administration instead wanted the justices to allow Trump's plan to go into effect for everyone except the handful of people and groups that sued. Failing that, the administration argued that the plan could remain blocked for now in the 22 states that sued. New Hampshire is covered by a separate order that is not at issue in this justices also agreed that the administration may make public announcements about how it plans to carry out the policy if it eventually is allowed to take effect.- EndsMust Watch
American Military News
5 hours ago
- Politics
- American Military News
Supreme Court hands Trump ‘Giant Win' in birthright citizenship case
The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a 'GIANT WIN' on Friday by ruling against 'universal injunctions' and limiting court injunctions after a lower court issued a preliminary injunction against the president's executive order blocking birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants. In a 6-3 ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court wrote, 'Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Government's applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.' In Friday's ruling, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett claimed that the 'universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent' for the majority of U.S. history. 'Its absence from 18th- and 19th-century equity practice settles the question of judicial authority,' Barrett wrote. 'That the absence continued into the 20th century renders any claim of historical pedigree still more implausible.' Barrett explained that the Supreme Court's ruling does not address whether the president's executive order on birthright citizenship violates the Nationality Act of the Citizenship Clause. Instead, Barrett said the issue presented to the Supreme Court 'is one of remedy: whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.' READ MORE: Supreme Court issues major deportation ruling Barrett added, 'A universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power.' In a concurring opinion, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained that the court's decision will now require district courts throughout the country to 'follow proper legal procedures' with regard to injunctions. 'Most significantly, district courts can no longer award preliminary nationwide or classwide relief except when such relief is legally authorized,' Kavanaugh stated. Following Friday's Supreme Court ruling, Trump issued a statement on Truth Social, saying, 'GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court! Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard. It had to do with the babies of slaves (same year!), not the SCAMMING of our Immigration process.' Vice President J.D. Vance also released a statement regarding the Supreme Court's decision, describing it as a 'huge ruling.' Vance claimed that the ruling will stop the 'ridiculous process of nationwide injunctions' that Democrat judges have used to continually block the president's executive orders. 'Under our system, everyone has to follow the law–including judges!' Vance tweeted.
The Hill
5 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
5 takeaways from the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling
The Supreme Court handed President Trump a clear victory Friday, stopping judges from issuing nationwide injunctions that block his executive order narrowing birthright citizenship. But the cases aren't over yet, as a new phase of the battle commences in the lower courts. Here are five takeaways from the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling. Friday's opinion came from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's third appointee to the court who has recently faced a barrage of criticism from the president's own supporters. The heat grew as Barrett this spring ruled against the administration in several emergency cases, including Trump's bid to freeze foreign aid payments and efforts to swiftly deport alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. By tradition, the most senior member of the majority decides who authors the opinion. So, Chief Justice John Roberts would've assigned Barrett as the author soon after the May 15 oral arguments. On Friday, Barrett ultimately wrote for all five of her fellow Republican-appointed justices, being the face of the Trump administration's major win. Barrett rejected the challengers' notion that nationwide injunctions were needed as a powerful tool to check the executive branch. 'Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them. When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,' she wrote. Though the court curtailed nationwide injunctions, the decision leaves the door open for plaintiffs to try to seek broad relief by pursuing class action lawsuits. Within hours, one group of plaintiffs quickly took the hint. A coalition of expectant mothers and immigration organizations suing asked a district judge in Maryland to issue a new ruling that applies to anyone designated as ineligible for birthright citizenship under Trump's order — the same practical effect as a nationwide injunction. The Democratic-led states suing are also vowing to press ahead. 'We remain hopeful that the courts will see that a patchwork of injunctions is unworkable, creating administrative chaos for California and others and harm to countless families across our country. The fight is far from over,' California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement. And the American Civil Liberties Union brought an entirely new lawsuit Friday seeking to do the same. The efforts could quickly bring the birthright citizenship battle back to the Supreme Court. 'In cases where classwide or set-aside relief has been awarded, the losing side in the lower courts will likewise regularly come to this Court if the matter is sufficiently important,' Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a solo concurring opinion. 'When a stay or injunction application arrives here, this Court should not and cannot hide in the tall grass.' Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court's leading conservatives, cautioned lower courts against creating a 'significant loophole' to Friday's decision by stretching when plaintiffs can file class action lawsuits. 'Federal courts should thus be vigilant against such potential abuses of these tools,' Alito wrote, joined by Thomas. Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned the chief dissent, arguing that the rule of law is 'not a given' in America and the high court gave up its 'vital role' in preserving it with Friday's opinion. Joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she claimed that the Trump administration sought to tear down nationwide injunctions because it can't prove the president's order narrowing birthright citizenship is likely constitutional. Trump's order made a 'solemn mockery' of the Constitution, she said, and his request to instead curtail nationwide injunctions is obvious 'gamesmanship.' 'Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way,' Sotomayor wrote. 'Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.' Going further than her liberal peers, Jackson wrote in a solo dissent that the court's decision was an 'existential threat to the rule of law' — drawing a harsh rebuke from Barrett, a dramatic exchange between the two most junior justices. Jackson argued that the majority uses legalese to obscure a more basic question at the heart of the case: 'May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?' 'It is not difficult to predict how this all ends,' Jackson wrote. 'Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.' At another point, she said that 'everyone, from the President on down, is bound by law,' suggesting that the Trump administration's efforts to 'vanquish' universal injunctions amounts to a request for permission to 'engage in unlawful behavior' — and that the majority gave the president just that. The rhetoric in Jackson's opinion amounts to a 'startling line of attack,' Barrett said, condemning her argument as 'extreme.' 'We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,' Barrett wrote. 'No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation — in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so.' She urged Jackson to 'heed her own admonition' that everyone, from the president down, is bound by law. 'That goes for judges too,' Barrett said. Trump and his allies hailed the ruling as a decisive victory for his administration, promising to move his sweeping second term agenda forward with judges' power significantly curtailed. 'It was a grave threat to democracy, frankly, and instead of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation,' Trump said at a press conference Friday afternoon. He specifically slammed 'radical left judges' he said used nationwide injunctions as a tool to 'overrule the rightful powers of the president' to stop illegal immigration. The decision means his administration can now move forward on a 'whole list' of policy priorities that were frozen nationwide by federal judges, he argued, from birthright citizenship to freezing federal funding. 'We have so many of them,' Trump said.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court, in birthright citizenship case, limits use of universal injunctions
Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday limited the use of nationwide injunctions, reining in federal judges' ability to issue sweeping orders that have in recent years stymied implementation of policies from Republican and Democratic presidential administrations alike. In a widely anticipated decision stemming from President Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, the high court said that universal orders likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to the federal courts. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion for the 6-3 court, with the liberal justices in dissent. The court granted the Trump administration request to narrow the reach of the injunctions blocking president's executive order while proceedings move forward, but "only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief" to plaintiffs who can sue, Barrett wrote. The justices did not address the question of whether Mr. Trump's order was constitutional, and the administration has said agencies have 30 days to issue public guidance about implementation of the policy, allowing time for more challenges to be filed. "Some say that the universal injunction 'give[s] the Judiciary a powerful tool to check the Executive Branch.' But federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them," Barrett wrote. "When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too." In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the government argues it "should be able to apply the Citizenship Order (whose legality it does not defend) to everyone except the plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit." "The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along," Sotomayor wrote, adding, "No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates." The birthright citizenship case The court's ruling came in a trio of emergency appeals by the Trump administration arising out of the president's executive order seeking to end the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship, which means that everyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of their parents' immigration status. The Justice Department had asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of three separate injunctions that blocked implementation of Mr. Trump's policy nationwide while legal challenges brought by 22 states, immigrants' rights groups and seven individuals moved forward. But instead of swiftly deciding whether to grant the Trump administration emergency relief, the Supreme Court held arguments on whether to restrict the use of nationwide, or universal, injunctions, which are judicial orders that prevent the government from enforcing a policy anywhere in the country and against anyone. The dispute over the president's attempt to unwind birthright citizenship has become intertwined with the administration's battle against nationwide injunctions. These sweeping orders have frustrated both Democratic and Republican presidents seeking to implement their agendas among gridlock in Congress, and the fight over them has been simmering for several years. The Congressional Research Service identified 86 nationwide injunctions that were issued during Mr. Trump's first term and 28 granted while former President Joe Biden was in office. In Mr. Trump's second term, the Congressional Research Service found 17 nationwide injunctions were issued during the first 100 days, though the Trump administration estimated last month there have been far more — at least 40 of these orders, and most coming from the same five judicial districts. Some of the justices have suggested in past writings that the Supreme Court would have to clarify whether nationwide injunctions are allowed at all, and members on both ideological sides of the bench have been critical of them. But the orders that blocked Mr. Trump's birthright citizenship executive order landed the issue before the Supreme Court earlier this year, though the administration has railed against them in requests to enforce its transgender military ban, fire thousands of federal probationary workers and move forward with mass layoffs of government employees. The president's executive order on birthright citizenship was one of the first that he signed on his first day back in office and is among several directives that seek to target migrants who are in the U.S. The Trump administration's immigration policies have led to high-profile clashes with the courts, namely Mr. Trump's use of the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang. While the 14th Amendment has for more than a century been understood to guarantee citizenship to all people born in the U.S., Mr. Trump's order denied birthright citizenship to children born to a mother who is unlawfully present in the U.S. or who is lawfully present on a temporary basis; or whose father is neither a citizen nor lawful permanent resident. The president's order directed federal agencies to stop issuing documents recognizing U.S. citizenship to children born after Feb. 19. More than half-a-dozen lawsuits challenging the measure were filed in courts throughout the country before it took effect, and three federal district courts in Washington, Maryland and Massachusetts each blocked the government from implementing the birthright citizenship order. Federal appeals courts in San Francisco, Boston, and Richmond, Virginia, then refused requests by the Trump administration to partly block the lower court orders. The Justice Department filed emergency appeals of the three decisions with the Supreme Court in mid-March and asked it to limit enforcement of the birthright citizenship order to 28 states and individuals who are not involved in the ongoing cases. The administration said that at a minimum, the Supreme Court should allow agencies to develop and issue public guidance regarding implementation of Mr. Trump's executive order while proceedings continue. Like other requests made to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department took aim at the breadth of the injunctions issued by the district courts, which are nationwide in scope and cover states and individuals who are not involved in the litigation before them. The president and his allies have attacked judges for issuing nationwide injunctions in the slew of legal challenges to Mr. Trump's policies, and even called for some to be impeached. The Justice Department said in a filing that universal injunctions have reached "epidemic" proportions since Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January. "Those injunctions thwart the executive branch's crucial policies on matters ranging from border security, to international relations, to national security, to military readiness," Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. "They repeatedly disrupt the operations of the Executive Branch up to the Cabinet level." But the plaintiffs in the cases challenging the directive urged the Supreme Court to leave the district court orders in place. In a filing with the Supreme Court, officials from 18 states, the District of Columbia and San Francisco called the Trump administration's request "remarkable," as it would allow the government to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship while the legal challenges move forward and render them "deportable on birth and at risk of statelessness. The states argued that the Trump administration seeks to violate binding Supreme Court precedent that recognized birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Hegseth slams Iran strikes initial assessment that contradicts Trump's take Young Cuban girl asks Trump to lift travel ban stopping her from joining mom in U.S. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez set for star-studded wedding in Venice
