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The Hill
8 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
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court sides with parents seeking opt-outs from LGBTQ books in schools
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines Friday ruled in favor of parents in Montgomery County, Md., who sought to opt out their children from instruction that uses books with LGBTQ themes. It hands another win to religious rights advocates, who have regularly earned the backing of the high court's conservative majority in a series of high-profile cases. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the six Republican-appointed justices, found the lack of an opt-out option likely substantially burdens parents' constitutional right to freely exercise their religion. The decision sends the case back to a lower court for a final decision on whether that requires the county to provide an opt-out. In the meantime, Alito said the school district must notify parents in advance and enable them to have their children removed from the instruction. 'In the absence of an injunction, the parents will continue to be put to a choice: either risk their child's exposure to burdensome instruction, or pay substantial sums for alternative educational services. As we have explained, that choice unconstitutionally burdens the parents' religious exercise,' Alito wrote. The court's three Democratic-appointed justices dissented. 'The result will be chaos for this Nation's public schools,' wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent's religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,' Sotomayor continued. 'The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too. Classroom disruptions and absences may well inflict long-lasting harm on students' learning and development.' Check out in-depth Supreme Court coverage in The Gavel, a The Hill newsletter published weekly. Located just across the border from Washington, D.C., Montgomery County runs one of the nation's largest and most diverse public school systems. In fall 2022, the county began introducing books with gay and transgender characters in language arts curriculum in elementary schools. Initially, the county allowed opt-outs before rescinding the option as a flood of parents sought to do so on religious grounds. A coalition comprising an organization formed to fight the policy, and a group of Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents sued. The parents appealed to the Supreme Court after a federal district judge rejected their bid to require an opt-out option, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in a 2-1 vote. The parents were represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which regularly brings religion cases before the high court. They were backed by the Trump administration, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other religious groups, more than five dozen Republican members of Congress, 26 Republican state attorneys general and various conservative legal groups. Montgomery County was backed by another coalition of religious groups, Democratic attorneys general from Washington, D.C., and 18 states, the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ advocacy groups. The case is one of several at the Supreme Court this term implicating religious rights. The court deadlocked 4-4 on the bid to create the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school, leaving intact a lower ruling blocking the Oklahoma school's contract. And the justices unanimously ruled Wisconsin must extend a religious tax exemption to the Catholic Charities Bureau, rejecting the state's argument that the bureau did not qualify for the carve-out because its operations were not primarily religious. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions; allows Trump to partially enforce birthright citizenship order
The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines Friday allowing President Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship to go into effect in some areas of the country, for now, by curtailing judges' ability to block the president's policies nationwide. Ruling that three federal district judges went too far in issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump's order, the high court's decision claws back a key tool plaintiffs have used to hamper the president's agenda in dozens of lawsuits. 'These injunctions — known as 'universal injunctions' — likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,' Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court's six Republican-appointed justices. But it does not yet definitively resolve whether Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional, a hefty legal question that could ultimately return to the justices. For now, the justices narrowed the lower court rulings to only block Trump's order as applied to the 22 Democratic-led states, expectant mothers and immigration organizations that are suing. The Trump administration can now resume developing guidance to implement the order, though it must wait 30 days before attempting to deny citizenship to anyone. However, the majority left the door open for plaintiffs to still try to seek broad relief by filing class action lawsuits. In dissent, the court's three Democratic-appointed justices accused the administration of 'gamesmanship' and condemned their colleagues for 'shamefully' playing along. 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. '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,' Sotomayor continued. She read her dissent aloud from the bench, which the justices reserve for only a few cases each term to express their deep disagreement. Signed on his first day in office, Trump's order curbs birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil if they don't have at least one parent with permanent legal status. The sweeping restrictions upend the conventional understanding of the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause, long recognized to only have few exceptions. Every court to directly confront the legality of Trump's order so far has found it likely unconstitutional. The administration went to the Supreme Court on its emergency docket to narrow nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Greenbelt, Md., Seattle and Boston. The cases will now return to the lower courts for further proceedings as Trump's order partially goes into effect. The parties could bring the case back to the justices once the appeals courts issue their final rulings. In a rare move, the high court agreed to hear oral arguments in the case, despite typically handling emergency applications solely based on a round of written briefing. The arguments took place in May, a special session scheduled after the normal window that ended in April. The Trump administration raised alarm about the dozens of nationwide injunctions imposed by judges since the president's inauguration, a sharp rise that the Justice Department insisted demonstrates judicial overreach intruding on Trump's authority. Trump's critics, however, have pushed back, saying the smattering of court injunctions reflects that the president has been acting lawlessly on birthright citizenship and other areas. Updated at 10:20 a.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Supreme Court sides with parents seeking opt outs from LGBTQ books in schools
The Supreme Court on Friday in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines ruled in favor of a group of parents in Montgomery County, Md., seeking to opt out their children from instruction that uses books with LGBTQ themes. It hands another win to religious rights advocates, who have regularly earned the backing of the high court's conservative majority in a series of high-profile cases. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the six Republican-appointed justices, found the lack of an opt-out option likely substantially burdens parents' constitutional right to freely exercise their religion. The decision sends the case back to a lower court for a final decision on whether that requires the county to provide an opt out. In the meantime, Alito said the school district must notify parents in advance and enable them to have their children removed from the instruction. 'In the absence of an injunction, the parents will continue to be put to a choice: either risk their child's exposure to burdensome instruction, or pay substantial sums for alternative educational services. As we have explained, that choice unconstitutionally burdens the parents' religious exercise,' Alito wrote. The court's three Democratic-appointed justices dissented. 'The result will be chaos for this Nation's public schools,' wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent's religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,' Sotomayor continued. 'The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too. Classroom disruptions and absences may well inflict long-lasting harm on students' learning and development.' Located just across the border from Washington, D.C., Montgomery County runs one of the nation's largest and most diverse public school systems. In fall 2022, the county began introducing books with gay and transgender characters in language arts curriculum in elementary schools. Initially, the county allowed opt outs before rescinding the option as a flood of parents sought to do so on religious grounds. A coalition comprising an organization formed to fight the policy as well as Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents sued. The parents appealed to the Supreme Court after a federal district judge rejected their bid to require an opt-out option and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in a 2-1 vote. The parents were represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which regularly brings religion cases before the high court. They were backed by the Trump administration, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and other religious groups, more than five dozen Republican members of Congress, 26 Republican state attorneys general and various conservative legal groups. Montgomery County was backed by another coalition of religious groups, Democratic attorneys general from Washington, D.C., and 18 states, the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ advocacy groups. The case is one of several at the Supreme Court this term implicating religious rights. The court deadlocked 4-4 on the bid to create the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school, leaving intact a lower ruling blocking the Oklahoma school's contract. And the justices are also weighing whether Wisconsin can refuse to extend its religious exemption from paying unemployment tax to Catholic Charities Bureau by questioning whether it has a religious purpose.
The Hill
12 hours ago
- Business
- The Hill
Supreme Court upholds federal internet subsidy program
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision upheld a multibillion-dollar subsidy program that funds phone and internet services in rural areas and schools on Friday, rejecting a conservative group's claims that Congress delegated away too much power in setting it up. Established in 1996, the Universal Service Fund (USF) is intended to help the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) accomplish its decades-long aim of affordable 'universal service' nationwide by providing subsidies to rural and low-income consumers as well as schools, libraries and health care facilities. It spends roughly $8 billion annually. Conservative nonprofit Consumers' Research challenged how Congress delegated determining how much telecommunications companies must contribute to the fund to the FCC, which it, in turn, sets based on a private company's financial projections. The group claimed the two layers combined violates the nondelegation doctrine, which prevents Congress from delegating its legislative authority to the executive branch without an intelligible principle. 'Nothing in those arrangements, either separately or together, violates the Constitution,' Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority, which comprised the court's three Democratic-appointed justices and three of the six Republican-appointed justices. Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented. 'When it comes to other aspects of the separation of powers, we have found manageable ways to honor the Constitution's design. This one requires no less of us,' Gorsuch wrote. Anti-regulatory interests had hoped the Supreme Court would use the case to revitalize the nondelegation doctrine, which the high court has not used to strike down a statute in 90 years. But the justices instead sided with the federal government, keeping the USF intact. Both the Biden and Trump-era Justice Departments defended the program. Among others, Consumers' Research challenge was backed by Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a libertarian advocacy group affiliated with the Koch brothers; the conservative Christian legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom; Former Vice President Pence's advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom; the Trump-aligned America First Legal Foundation; and the Cato Institute, a prominent libertarian think tank. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of 22 state attorneys general, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, broadband groups and the American Library Association and others filed briefs in support of USF.
