Latest news with #USSupremeCourt
Straits Times
35 minutes ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
Trump victorious again as US Supreme Court wraps up its term
Mr Trump has scored a series of victories at the Supreme Court since returning to office in January. PHOTO: REUTERS Trump victorious again as US Supreme Court wraps up its term WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court on the last day of rulings for its current term gave Donald Trump his latest in a series of victories at the nation's top judicial body, one that may make it easier for him to implement contentious elements of his sweeping agenda as he tests the limits of presidential power. With its six conservative members in the majority and its three liberals dissenting, the court on Jan 27 curbed the ability of judges to impede his policies nationwide, resetting the power balance between the federal judiciary and presidents. The ruling came after the Republican president's administration asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of so-called 'universal' injunctions issued by three federal judges that halted nationally the enforcement of his January executive order limiting birthright citizenship. The court's decision has 'systematically weakened judicial oversight and strengthened executive discretion,' said Mr Paul Rosenzweig, an attorney who served in Republican President George W. Bush's administration. June 27's ruling said that judges generally can grant relief only to the individuals or groups who brought a particular lawsuit. The decision did not, however, permit immediate implementation of Mr Trump's directive, instead instructing lower courts to reconsider the scope of the injunctions. The ruling was authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of three conservative justices who Mr Trump appointed during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021. Mr Trump has scored a series of victories at the Supreme Court since returning to office in January. These have included clearing the way for his administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face and ending temporary legal status held by hundreds of thousands of migrants on humanitarian grounds. The court also permitted implementation of Mr Trump's ban on transgender people in the military, let his administration withhold payment to foreign aid groups for work already performed for the government, allowed his firing of two Democratic members of federal labor boards to stand for now, and backed his Department of Government Efficiency in two disputes. 'President Trump secured the relief he sought in most of his administration's cases,' Mr George Mason University law school professor Robert Luther III said. 'Justice Barrett's opinion is a win for the presidency,' Mr Luther said of the decision on nationwide injunctions. 'It recognises that the executive branch is a bully pulpit with a wide range of authorities to implement the promises of a campaign platform.' Once again, as with many of the term's major decisions, the three liberal justices found themselves in dissent, a familiar position as the court under the guidance of Chief Justice John Roberts continues to shift American law rightward. The rulings in favour of Mr Trump illustrate that "the court's three most liberal justices are proving less relevant now than at any earlier point in the Roberts Court with respect to their impact on its jurisprudence," Mr Luther said. The cases involving Mr Trump administration policies this year came to the court as emergency filings rather than through the normal process, with oral arguments held only in the birthright litigation. And those arguments did not focus on the legality of Mr Trump's action but rather on the actions of the judges who found that it was likely unconstitutional. 'One theme is the court's struggle to keep pace with a faster-moving legal world, especially as the Trump administration tests the outer boundaries of its powers,' Boston College Law School professor Daniel Lyons said. In other cases during the nine-month term, the court sided with a Republican-backed ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, endorsed South Carolina's plan to cut off public funding to reproductive healthcare and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, and made it easier to pursue claims alleging workplace 'reverse' discrimination. The court also spared two American gun companies from the Mexican government's lawsuit accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels, and allowed parents to opt elementary school children out of classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read. In several cases involving federal statutes, the message from the justices is that people unhappy with the outcome need to take that up with Congress, according to Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson. 'The court is implicitly saying, 'That's Congress' problem to fix, and it's not the court's role to solve those issues,'' Mr Levinson said. This is the second straight year that the court ended its term with a decision handing Mr Trump a major victory. On July 1, 2024, it ruled in favour of Mr Trump in deciding that presidents cannot be prosecuted for official actions taken in office. It marked the first time that the court recognised any form of presidential immunity from prosecution. The Supreme Court's next term begins in October but Trump's administration still has some emergency requests pending that the justices could act upon at any time. It has asked the court to halt a judicial order blocking mass federal job cuts and the restructuring of agencies. It also has asked the justices to rein in the judge handling a case involving deportations to so-called 'third countries.' Recent rulings 'have really shown the court for what it is, which is a deeply conservative court,' Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis said. The court's jurisprudence reflects a larger shift in the national discourse, with Republicans feeling they have the political capital to achieve long-sought aims, Kreis said. The court's conservative majority, Mr Kreis said, 'is probably feeling more emboldened to act.' REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Perth Now
35 minutes ago
- Politics
- Perth Now
Trump victorious again as US Supreme Court closes term
The US Supreme Court on the last day of rulings for its term gave Donald Trump his latest in a series of victories at the nation's top judicial body, one that might make it easier for him to implement contentious elements of his sweeping agenda as he tests the limits of presidential power. With its six conservative members in the majority and its three liberals dissenting, the court on Friday curbed the ability of judges to impede his policies nationwide, resetting the power balance between the federal judiciary and presidents. The ruling came after the Republican president's administration asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of so-called "universal" injunctions issued by three federal judges that halted nationally the enforcement of his January executive order limiting birthright citizenship. The court's decision has "systematically weakened judicial oversight and strengthened executive discretion", said Paul Rosenzweig, a lawyer who served in Republican President George W Bush's administration. Friday's ruling said that judges generally could grant relief only to the individuals or groups who brought a particular lawsuit. The decision did not, however, permit immediate implementation of Trump's directive, instead instructing lower courts to reconsider the scope of the injunctions. The ruling was authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of three conservative justices who Trump appointed during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021. Trump has scored a series of victories at the Supreme Court since returning to office in January. These have included clearing the way for his administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face and ending temporary legal status held by hundreds of thousands of migrants on humanitarian grounds. The court also permitted implementation of Trump's ban on transgender people in the military, let his administration withhold payment to foreign aid groups for work already performed for the government, allowed his firing of two Democratic members of federal labour boards to stand for now, and backed his Department of Government Efficiency in two disputes. "President Trump secured the relief he sought in most of his administration's cases," George Mason University law school professor Robert Luther III said. "Justice Barrett's opinion is a win for the presidency," Luther said of the decision on nationwide injunctions. "It recognises that the executive branch is a bully pulpit with a wide range of authorities to implement the promises of a campaign platform." Once again, as with many of the term's major decisions, the three liberal justices found themselves in dissent, a familiar position as the court under the guidance of Chief Justice John Roberts continues to shift American law rightward. The rulings in favour of Trump illustrate that "the court's three most liberal justices are proving less relevant now than at any earlier point in the Roberts court with respect to their impact on its jurisprudence", Luther said. The cases involving Trump administration policies came to the court as emergency filings rather than through the normal process, with oral arguments held only in the birthright litigation. And those arguments did not focus on the legality of Trump's action but rather on the actions of the judges who found it was likely unconstitutional. "One theme is the court's struggle to keep pace with a faster-moving legal world, especially as the Trump administration tests the outer boundaries of its powers," Boston College Law School professor Daniel Lyons said. In other cases during the nine-month term, the court sided with a Republican-backed ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, endorsed South Carolina's plan to cut off public funding to reproductive health care and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, and made it easier to pursue claims alleging workplace "reverse" discrimination. The court also spared two American gun companies from the Mexican government's lawsuit accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels, and allowed parents to opt elementary school children out of classes when storybooks with LGBTQI characters are read. In several cases involving federal statutes, the message from the justices is that people unhappy with the outcome need to take that up with Congress, according to Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson. "The court is implicitly saying, 'That's Congress's problem to fix, and it's not the court's role to solve those issues'," Levinson said. This is the second straight year that the court ended its term with a decision handing Trump a major victory. On July 1, 2024, it ruled in favour of Trump in deciding that presidents cannot be prosecuted for official actions taken in office. It marked the first time the court recognised any form of presidential immunity from prosecution. The Supreme Court's next term begins in October but Trump's administration still has some emergency requests pending that the justices could act upon at any time. It has asked the court to halt a judicial order blocking mass federal job cuts and the restructuring of agencies. It also has asked the justices to rein in the judge handling a case involving deportations to so-called "third countries". Recent rulings "have really shown the court for what it is, which is a deeply conservative court", Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis said. The court's jurisprudence reflected a larger shift in the national discourse, with Republicans feeling they had the political capital to achieve long-sought aims, Kreis said. The court's conservative majority, Kreis said, "is probably feeling more emboldened to act".
AsiaOne
42 minutes ago
- Politics
- AsiaOne
Supreme Court in birthright case limits judges' power to block presidential policies, World News
WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major victory on Friday (June 27) in a case involving birthright citizenship by curbing the ability of judges to impede his policies nationwide, changing the power balance between the federal judiciary and presidents. The 6-3 ruling, authored by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not let Trump's directive restricting birthright citizenship go into effect immediately, directing lower courts that blocked it to reconsider the scope of their orders. The ruling also did not address the legality of the policy, part of Trump's hardline approach toward immigration. The Republican president lauded the ruling and said his administration can now try to move forward with numerous policies such as his birthright citizenship executive order that he said "have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis." "We have so many of them. I have a whole list," Trump told reporters at the White House. The court granted the administration's request to narrow the scope of three so-called "universal" injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state that halted enforcement of his directive nationwide while litigation challenging the policy plays out. The court's conservative justices were in the majority and its liberal members dissented. The ruling specified that Trump's executive order cannot take effect until 30 days after Friday's ruling. The ruling thus raises the prospect of Trump's order eventually applying in some parts of the country. Federal judges have taken steps including issuing numerous nationwide orders impeding Trump's aggressive use of executive action to advance his agenda. The three judges in the birthright citizenship litigation found that Trump's order likely violates citizenship language in the US Constitution's 14th Amendment. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also called a "green card" holder. Warning against 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." Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the ruling a "travesty for the rule of law" as she read a summary of her dissent from the bench. In her written dissent, joined by the court's two other liberal justices, Sotomayor criticised the court's majority for ignoring whether Trump's executive order is constitutional. "Yet the order's patent unlawfulness reveals the gravity of the majority's error and underscores why equity supports universal injunctions as appropriate remedies in this kind of case," Sotomayor wrote. More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship annually under Trump's directive, according to the plaintiffs who challenged it, including the Democratic attorneys general of 22 states as well as immigrant rights advocates and pregnant immigrants. The ruling was issued on the final day of decisions on cases argued before the Supreme Court during its nine-month term that began in October. The court also issued rulings on Friday backing a Texas law regarding online pornography, letting parents opt children out of classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read, endorsing the Federal Communications Commission's funding mechanism for expanded phone and broadband internet access and preserving Obamacare's provision on health insurers covering preventive care. 'Monumental victory' Trump called the ruling a "monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law." The policies Trump said his administration can now attempt to proceed with included cutting off funds to so-called "sanctuary cities," suspending resettlement of refugees in the United States, freezing "unnecessary" federal funding and preventing federal funds from paying for gender-affirming surgeries. [[nid:632424]] The case before the Supreme Court was unusual in that the administration used it to argue that federal judges lack the authority to issue "universal" injunctions, and asked the justices to rule that way and enforce the president's directive even without weighing its legal merits. Friday's ruling did not rule out all forms of broad relief. The ruling said judges may provide "complete relief" only to the plaintiffs before them. It did not foreclose the possibility that states might need an injunction that applies beyond their borders to obtain complete relief. "We decline to take up those arguments in the first instance," wrote Barrett, who Trump appointed to the court in 2020. The ruling left untouched the potential for plaintiffs to seek wider relief through class action lawsuits, but that legal mechanism is often harder to successfully mount. In her dissent, Sotomayor said Trump's executive order is obviously unconstitutional. So rather than defend it on the merits, she wrote, the Justice Department "asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone." Sotomayor advised parents of children who would be affected by Trump's order "to file promptly class action suits and to request temporary injunctive relief for the putative class." Maryland-based US District Judge Deborah Boardman, who previously blocked the order nationwide, scheduled a Monday hearing after immigration rights advocates filed a motion asking her to treat the case as a class action and block the policy nationwide again. "The Supreme Court has now instructed that, in such circumstances, class-wide relief may be appropriate," the lawyers wrote in their motion. Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, whose state helped secure the nationwide injunction issued by a judge in Seattle, called Friday's ruling "disappointing on many levels" but stressed that the justices "confirmed that courts may issue broad injunctions when needed to provide complete relief to the parties." Universal injunctions have been opposed by presidents of both parties - Republican and Democratic - and can prevent the government from enforcing a policy against anyone, instead of just the individual plaintiffs who sued to challenge the policy. Proponents have said they are an efficient check on presidential overreach, and have stymied actions deemed unlawful by presidents of both parties. 'Illegal and cruel' The American Civil Liberties Union called the ruling troubling, but limited, because lawyers can seek additional protections for potentially affected families. "The executive order is blatantly illegal and cruel. It should never be applied to anyone," said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "The court's decision to potentially open the door to enforcement is disappointing, but we will do everything in our power to ensure no child is ever subjected to the executive order." The plaintiffs argued that Trump's directive ran afoul of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War of 1861-1865 that ended slavery in the United States. The 14th Amendment's citizenship clause states 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." The administration contends that the 14th Amendment, long understood to confer citizenship to virtually anyone born in the United States, does not extend to immigrants who are in the country illegally or even to immigrants whose presence is lawful but temporary, such as university students or those on work visas. In a June 11-12 Reuters/Ipsos poll, 24 per cent of all respondents supported ending birthright citizenship and 52 per cent opposed it. Among Democrats, 5 per cent supported ending it, with 84 per cent opposed. Among Republicans, 43 per cent supported ending it, with 24 per cent opposed. The rest said they were unsure or did not respond to the question. The Supreme Court has handed Trump some important victories on his immigration policies since he returned to office in January. On Monday, it cleared the way for his administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face. In separate decisions on May 30 and May 19, it let the administration end the temporary legal status previously given by the government to hundreds of thousands of migrants on humanitarian grounds. But the court on May 16 kept in place its block on Trump's deportations of Venezuelan migrants under a 1798 law historically used only in wartime, faulting his administration for seeking to remove them without adequate due process.
Business Times
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Business Times
Trump's court win opens a path to clear hurdles to his agenda
[WASHINGTON, DC] The US Supreme Court's ruling curbing the power of judges to block government actions on a nationwide basis has raised questions about whether dozens of orders that have halted US President Donald Trump's policies will stand. The conservative majority's ruling Friday (Jun 27) came in a fight over Trump's plan to limit automatic birthright citizenship. But it may have far-reaching consequences for the ability of US courts to issue orders that apply to anyone affected by a policy, not just the parties who filed lawsuits. Judges entered nationwide preliminary orders halting Trump administration actions in at least four dozen of the 400 lawsuits filed since he took office in January, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. Some were later put on hold on appeal. Nationwide orders currently in place include blocks on the administration's revocation of foreign students' legal status, freezes of domestic spending and foreign aid, funding cuts related to gender-affirming care and legal services for migrant children, and proof-of-citizenship rules for voting. The Supreme Court's new precedent doesn't instantly invalidate injunctions in those cases. But the Justice Department could quickly ask federal judges to revisit the scope of these and other earlier orders in light of the opinion. 'Fair game' 'Everything is fair game,' said Dan Huff, a lawyer who served in the White House counsel's office during Trump's first term. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. Trump said at a press conference in the White House Friday that the administration will 'promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis'. Trump listed cases that they would target, including suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding and 'stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries'. The Trump administration has made it a priority to contest court orders that block policies on a nationwide, or universal, basis, although the controversy over whether those types of rulings are an appropriate use of judicial power has been brewing for years. Conservative advocates won such orders when Democratic presidents were in office as well. Noting the mounting pushback and debate, judges in dozens of other cases involving Trump's policies have limited their orders against the administration to the parties that sued or within certain geographical boundaries. Anastasia Boden, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation whose practice includes suing the federal government, said she didn't see the ruling as a total 'retreat' from judges' authority to enter universal orders going forward. Multiple paths 'It's addressing the case where a plaintiff is getting relief that applies to everyone across the country merely because judges think that it's an important issue,' she said. 'But it doesn't change the case where the plaintiff needs that relief.' Boden offered the example of a challenge to government spending, in which the only way to halt an unlawful action would be to stop payment of federal dollars across the country, not just to individual plaintiffs or in certain areas. Trump's opponents say the justices' decision still leaves them with multiple paths to sue the administration over actions they contend are unlawful and even to argue for nationwide relief. Those options include class action lawsuits, cases seeking to set aside agency actions under a US law known as the Administrative Procedure Act and even continuing to argue that nationwide relief is the only way to stop harm to individual plaintiffs, like parties did in the birthright citizenship cases. But they also acknowledged the court significantly raised the burden of what they have to prove to win those types of orders. 'This is going to make it more challenging, more complicated, potentially more expensive to seek orders that more broadly stop illegal government action,' Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said. 'It is watering down the power of federal courts to check government misconduct.' The Supreme Court sent the birthright citizenship cases back to lower court judges to reconsider the scope of orders pausing Trump's restrictions while the legal fight on its constitutionality continues. The justices did not rule on the core question of whether the policy itself is lawful. The administration can't fully enforce the birthright policy for at least another 30 days. Democratic state attorneys general involved in the birthright litigation highlighted language in Justice Amy Coney Barrett's majority opinion that the court didn't shut off the possibility that the states could still successfully argue for a nationwide order. Speaking with reporters after the ruling, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said he and his Democratic colleagues would 'assess' the impact on other cases. He said they already had been judicious in asking judges for nationwide relief as opposed to orders that restricted administration policies in specific states. 'The court confirmed what we've thought all along – nationwide relief should be limited, but it is available to states when appropriate,' Platkin said. BLOOMBERG
Express Tribune
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Supreme Court hands Trump 'giant win'
In a 5-4 unsigned opinion the top US court said that some of New York's restrictions violated the First Amendment's protection of the free exercise of religion. PHOTO: AFP The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major victory on Friday by curbing the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding his policies but it left unresolved the issue of whether he can limit birthright citizenship. The Republican president welcomed the ruling and said his administration can now seek to proceed with numerous policies such as his executive order aiming to restrict birthright citizenship that he said "have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis". "We have so many of them. I have a whole list," Trump told reporters at the White House. The court's 6-3 ruling, authored by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not let Trump's birthright citizenship order go into effect immediately, directing lower courts that blocked it to reconsider the scope of their orders. The ruling also did not address its legality. The justices granted a request by the Trump administration to narrow the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state that halted enforcement of his directive while litigation challenging the policy plays out. With the court's conservatives in the majority and its liberals dissenting, the ruling specified that Trump's executive order cannot take effect until 30 days after Friday's ruling. The ruling thus raises the prospect of Trump's order eventually taking effect in some parts of the country. Federal judges have taken steps including issuing numerous nationwide orders impeding Trump's aggressive use of executive action to advance his agenda. The three judges in the birthright citizenship cases found that Trump's order likely violates citizenship language in the Constitution's 14th Amendment. "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," Barrett wrote.
