Latest news with #CASA
Mint
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Mint
Confusion and anxiety grips immigrant communities nationwide after US Supreme Court's ruling on birthright citizenship
Confusion and anxiety gripped immigrant communities nationwide after the Supreme Court's ruling on birthright citizenship, leaving pregnant asylum seekers like Lorena, a 24-year-old Colombian in Houston, fearing her unborn child could become stateless, according to a Reuters report. "I don't understand it well," she admitted, voicing concerns that her September-born baby might lack Colombian citizenship if she can't add the child to her pending asylum case. Her panic reflects a broader uncertainty: The court's 6-3 decision curbed federal judges' power to issue nationwide injunctions against President Trump's executive order denying citizenship to babies born to undocumented or temporary-visa holders, but did not rule on the order's constitutionality. Instead, it triggered a 30-day countdown before the policy could take effect, during which lower courts must reconsider narrower ways to block it. Immigrant advocates reported a surge of calls from distraught parents-to-be, including a visa holder in Ohio terrified his child would be denied rights in a non-plaintiff state. "I don't want her to be adrift with no nationality," Lorena said, highlighting the humanitarian crisis brewing beneath all the legal chaos. The ruling's ambiguity centers on its potential to fracture citizenship rights state-by-state. While Trump's order remains blocked for plaintiffs like members of Maryland's CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, it could apply elsewhere after 30 days, creating what experts call an "unworkable patchwork." For instance, a baby born to undocumented parents in Louisiana (a non-plaintiff state) might be denied citizenship, while an identical birth in Massachusetts (a plaintiff state) would secure it. This disparity could force hospitals to act as de facto immigration enforcers, checking parents' statuses during childbirth. "Would individual doctors have to figure out how to determine citizenship?" asked Migration Policy Institute analyst Kathleen Bush-Joseph, as per Reuters. Trump, meanwhile, doubled down at a press conference, falsely claiming "hundreds of thousands" exploit birthright citizenship as a migration magnet. In a rapid response, advocacy groups filed class-action lawsuits to shield families nationwide. Within hours of the ruling, CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project amended their Maryland lawsuit to seek certification for a nationwide class covering all children born after February 19, 2025, who'd be stripped of citizenship under Trump's order. "We're going to get protection for everyone," vowed lawyer William Powell, arguing class actions could achieve what universal injunctions no longer can. But hurdles persist: Joining these groups requires resources that many lack, and Republican-led states may still enforce the policy during litigation. Betsy, a Virginia teen and CASA member whose undocumented parents migrated from El Salvador, fears targeting 'innocent kids who haven't even been born.' Meanwhile, Democratic attorneys general in 22 states signaled they'll argue in lower courts that only nationwide injunctions prevent bureaucratic chaos, like tracking parents who cross state lines to give birth. As Honduran asylum seeker Nivida fielded panicked calls from pregnant friends in Louisiana, she echoed a community's plea: "Is the baby going to be a citizen?" With the Supreme Court likely to revisit the order's constitutionality this fall, the clock ticks toward a fragmented America.
New York Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Times
The Supreme Court Is Watching Out for the Courts, Not for Trump
On Friday, the Supreme Court decided the birthright citizenship cases — except they aren't really about birthright citizenship. In an executive order issued in January, President Trump wanted to redefine citizenship in the United States. The court's decision in Trump v. CASA does not address that effort; it is rather about the scope of remedies given by the federal courts. In the decision, a 6-3 majority of the court held that the federal courts have no authority to issue universal injunctions, which are court orders that control how the government acts toward everyone in the country, not just the parties in the case. The high court's decision has the potential to reshape the relationship between the federal judiciary and the executive branch — and the court got it right. In rejecting the practice of universal injunctions, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the proper role of the federal courts within our constitutional system. What the justices got right was a shift in thinking about what Americans want our courts to do, and especially how they should operate in a democracy under pressure. There has been a shift toward a new model of judicial interaction with the executive branch. This new model has been marked by broader remedies, faster timelines, fewer trials and less factual development — which is to say, less time devoted to discovery and oral argument in lower courts. It has also meant more extreme forum-shopping for favorable judges — when plaintiffs seek out a specific judge whom they wish to hear their case, presumably because of how they expect that judge to rule. Removing universal injunctions does not change all of that — it is not like the last Jenga block that makes the tower fall. But the universal injunction has supported and intensified all those other developments. Removing it gives the courts a chance to reset, and to shift toward the more deliberative mode in which they do their best work. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Justice Jackson's activist opinion does more damage to Supreme Court civility
For most citizens, the release of Supreme Court opinions is about as exciting as watching paint dry, particularly in a case dealing with the limits of district courts in issuing universal injunctions. Yet Friday's Trump v. CASA case included a virtual slugfest between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The decision was one of the biggest of the term. The Court moved to free the Administration from an onslaught of orders from district judges seeking to block the President in areas ranging from the downsizing of government to immigration. Advertisement However, it was the departure of the normally staid court analysis that attracted the most attention. The tenor of Jackson's language shocked not just many court watchers, but her colleagues. It seemed ripped from the signs carried just a couple of weeks earlier in the 'No Kings' protests. The Court often deals with issues that deeply divide the nation. Yet it tends to calm the waters by engaging in measured, reasoned analysis — showing the nation that these are matters upon which people can have good-faith disagreements. But that culture of civility and mutual respect has been under attack in recent years. Advertisement Not long ago, the Court was rocked by the leaking of the draft of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The was followed by furious protests against conservative justices at their homes and an attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There was also a change in the tenor of the exchanges in oral argument and opinions between the justices. Recently, during the argument over the use of national injunctions in May, Chief Justice John Roberts was clearly fed up with Justice Sotomayor interrupting government counsel with pointed questions and commentary, finally asking Sotomayor, 'Will you please let us hear his answer?' This hyperbole seemed to border on hysteria in the Jackson dissent. The most junior justice effectively accused her colleagues of being toadies for tyranny. Advertisement It proved too much for the majority, which pushed back on the overwrought rhetoric. While the language may seem understated in comparison to what we regularly hear in Congress, it was the equivalent of a virtual cage match for the Court. Some of us have argued that our system is working just as designed, particularly as these issues work through the courts. The courts have ruled for and against this Administration as they struggle with the difficult lines of authority between the branches. Liberals who claim 'democracy is dying' seem to view democracy as getting what you want when you want it. Advertisement It was, therefore, distressing to see Jackson picking up on the 'No Kings' theme, warning about drifting toward 'a rule-of-kings governing system' She said that limiting the power of individual judges to freeze the entire federal government was 'enabling our collective demise. At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up in minutiae of the Government's self-serving, finger-pointing arguments that it misses the plot.' The 'minutiae' dismissed by Jackson happen to be the statutory and constitutional authority of federal courts. It is the minutiae that distinguish the rule of law from mere judicial impulse. Justice Barrett clearly had had enough with the self-aggrandizing rhetoric. She delivered a haymaker in writing that 'JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: '[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.' Ibid. That goes for judges too.' She added, '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. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.' In other words, the danger to democracy is found in judges acting like kings. Barrett explained to her three liberal colleagues that 'when a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.' The last term has laid bare some of the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Jackson. Untethered by statutory or constitutional text, it allows the courts to float free from the limits of Article III. Advertisement For many, that is not an escape into minutiae but madness without clear lines for judicial power. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of 'The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.'
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court Kills ‘Universal' Injunctions
When the President abuses his executive power, the answer isn't for federal judges to abuse theirs. That was the message Friday from the Supreme Court, in a landmark 6-3 opinion ending routine 'universal injunctions.' This is a victory for President Trump in this case, but it will work in favor of future Democratic Presidents too. The ruling involves Mr. Trump's executive order that seeks to deny 'birthright citizenship' to certain children born in the U.S. The consensus view is that Mr. Trump's effort is unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, and the Court reserves judgment on that question. Its opinion in Trump v. CASA is focused on whether lower-court judges hearing challenges to the policy from specific plaintiffs have the authority to block it nationwide for everyone.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
A stunning and tragic Supreme Court decision
The Supreme Court on Friday dealt a grievous blow to separation of powers by holding that federal courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions to halt unconstitutional actions by the president and the federal government. At a time when President Trump is asserting unprecedented powers, the court made it far more difficult to restrain his unconstitutional actions. The case, Trump vs. CASA, involved the president's executive order ending birthright citizenship. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment provides that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' In 1898, in United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court held that this means that everyone born in the United States, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, is a United States citizen. The court explained that 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' was meant to exclude just children born to soldiers in an invading army or those born to diplomats. Trump's executive order directly contradicted this precedent and our national understanding of citizenship by decreeing that only those born here to citizens or to residents with green cards are citizens too. Immediately, several federal courts issued nationwide injunctions to stop this from going into effect. But the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling split along ideological lines, said that federal courts lack the power to issue such orders. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the conservative justices, declared that such universal injunctions 'likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.' Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, put this succinctly: 'Today puts an end to the 'increasingly common' practice of federal courts issuing universal injunctions.' Indeed, the court's opinion indicated that a federal court can give relief only to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit. This is a radical limit on the power of the federal courts. Nothing in any federal law or the Constitution justifies this restriction on the judicial power. The court did not rule on the constitutionality of Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship, but it made it far more difficult to stop what is a clearly unconstitutional act. The practical consequences are enormous. It would mean that to challenge the constitutionality of a presidential action or federal law a separate lawsuit will need to be brought in all 94 federal districts. It means that the law often will be different depending on where a person lives. Astoundingly, it could mean that there could be two people born in identical circumstances in different federal districts and one would be a citizen, while the other would not. This makes no sense. It will mean that the president can take an unconstitutional act and even after courts in some places strike it down, continue it elsewhere until all of the federal districts and all of the federal court of appeals have invalidated it. In fact, the court said that a federal court can give relief only to the named plaintiff, which means that in the context of birthright citizenship each parent affected by the birthright citizenship executive order will need to sue separately. Never before has the Supreme Court imposed such restrictions on the ability of courts to provide relief against unconstitutional acts. The court holds open the possibility of class actions as a way around this. But the requirements for class action litigation are often burdensome, and the Supreme Court has consistently made it much more difficult to bring such suits. Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a powerful dissent expressed what this means. She wrote: 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship. The majority holds that, absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief. That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit. Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent.' Let there be no doubt what this means; the Supreme Court has greatly reduced the power of the federal courts. And it has done so at a time when the federal judiciary may be our only guardrail to protect the Constitution and democracy. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson explained in her dissent, 'The Court's decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.' It is a stunning and tragic limit on the power of the courts to enforce the Constitution. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, is an Opinion Voices contributing writer.
