Latest news with #birthrightcitizenship
NHK
26 minutes ago
- Politics
- NHK
US Supreme Court curbs nationwide injunctions against Trump
The US Supreme Court has ruled on Friday that judges on federal courts lack the authority to grant what is known as nationwide injunctions. President Donald Trump has had one after another of his policy initiatives blocked by judges issuing the injunctions. The specific case before the court had to do with what is known as birthright citizenship, which allows anyone born on US soil to automatically become a citizen regardless of their parents' immigration status. Trump signed an order on his first day in office to revoke the right for certain people. Those include babies whose mothers are in the country illegally or temporarily, as well as children whose fathers are not US citizens or permanent residents. The court's decision limits the ability of federal judges to issue rulings that apply nationwide. It specifies that Trump's order cannot take effect for 30 days, but it didn't address the constitutionality of the order.
CNN
an hour ago
- Politics
- CNN
Amy Coney Barrett leaves no doubt that she stands with Trump and the conservative supermajority
For months, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has faced fierce criticism from conservatives over some of her decisions in cases involving President Donald Trump. That even included Trump at times. But after Friday's blockbuster opinion in the birthright citizenship case, that blowback was suddenly a distant memory. It was Barrett, who Trump nominated to the high court in September 2020, who delivered the president a clear and dramatic win, kneecapping the ability of lower court judges to block his agenda. Trump, who has privately complained about Barrett, was effusive in his praise. 'I want to thank Justice Barrett, who wrote the opinion brilliantly, as well as Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas – great people,' Trump said during a celebratory news conference at the White House. 'I just have great respect for her. I always have,' Trump said. 'And her decision was brilliantly written today — from all accounts.' Given the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative supermajority – cemented when Barrett succeeded the late liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – the court's liberal wing has always faced an uphill climb to wind up anywhere but in dissent. But at times, Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts have shown willingness to break from their more conservative colleagues. Many conservatives were apoplectic in March when Barrett voted to reject Trump's plan to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid. The backlash over that decision from some close to Trump was swift, with one conservative legal commentator describing her on a podcast as a 'rattled law professor with her head up her a**.' Others took to social media to describe her as a 'DEI hire' and 'evil.' The anger directed at Barrett, a former appeals court judge and law professor, intensified when the Supreme Court divided 4-4 in a high-profile case questioning whether a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma should be entitled to taxpayer funding. Barrett recused herself from taking part in the case – she had multiple ties to the attorneys representing the school – and the even split left in place a ruling from Oklahoma's top court that found the school unconstitutional. In private, some of Trump's allies had told him that Barrett is 'weak' and that her rulings have not been in line with how she presented herself in an interview before Trump nominated her to the bench, sources told CNN. 'It's not just one ruling. It's been a few different events he's complained about privately,' a senior administration official said earlier this month. So it was notable that Barrett, the second-most junior member of the court, was assigned Friday's major opinion. Because the senior-most justice on each side of a decision assigns the author of that decision, it means Roberts assigned the case to Barrett. Most court watchers assumed Roberts would write the opinion himself, or that it would be unsigned. It was, by far, the highest-profile opinion Barrett has authored on the court. And it was a major win for the president – the second time the Supreme Court has ended a term in as many years with a blockbuster ruling in his favor. Last year, the court ruled that Trump was entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution on federal election interference charges. Barrett's opinion doesn't necessarily mean that Trump will be able to enforce the birthright citizenship order. Lower courts are likely to move swiftly to shut it down through other paths, such as through class-action lawsuits. But it will at least make it harder for groups challenging future Trump policies to get those measures paused on a temporary basis. 'As the number of universal injunctions has increased, so too has the importance of the issue,' Barrett wrote, without addressing the fact that some of that increase has been the result of a president who had admittedly sought to push the boundaries of the law in his favor. 'As with most questions of law, the policy pros and cons are beside the point,' Barrett wrote. 'Under our well-established precedent, the equitable relief available in the federal courts is that 'traditionally accorded by courts of equity' at the time of our founding. Nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mass. AG Campbell vows to fight on after Supreme Court hands Trump birthright citizenship win
While expressing disappointment with Friday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the birthright citizenship case, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell is confident states will 'absolutely be successful' in defeating President Donald Trump's executive order in court. In a 6-3 decision Friday, the Supreme Court handed a win to the Trump administration in the much-anticipated birthright citizenship case, while simultaneously not ruling on the birthright issue directly. The court ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, which have effectively blocked many of Trump's policies since he took office in January. The ruling means injunctions would only apply to plaintiffs in the specific lawsuits at hand. The decision left unclear the fate of Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship. Read more: Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions, but fate of Trump birthright citizenship order unclear The court's conservative majority left open the possibility that Trump's changes — an executive order signed on his first day in office that would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally — could remain blocked nationwide. Speaking alongside fellow Democratic attorneys general from Connecticut, New Jersey, California and Washington, Campbell on Friday said Trump cannot change the U.S. Constitution, in this case the 14th Amendment, with the 'simple strike of a pen.' 'Millions of Americans can trace their citizenship back to immigrant ancestors who helped build this country (and) fuel our economy under the protections of the 14th Amendment,' she said. 'Deeply disappointed' that the Supreme Court did not decide that a nationwide injunction is warranted in the case, Campbell said she and other attorneys general who have sued will press on for the more than 150,000 babies born in the U.S. every year into birthright citizenship. Campbell also addressed the state-by-state patchwork legal issues potentially created by Friday's ruling. 'Citizenship does not depend on whether a baby is born in New Hampshire or Massachusetts,' she said. 'People move, they live along state borders, they're born in hospitals outside the state they live in. A baby's citizenship should not, cannot and must not be determined by the borders of the state they find themselves in at the time of birth. And that's why the district court initially granted nationwide relief because they understood that to be true.' Immigrant rights groups and 22 states had sued over Trump's order, and four federal judges, including one in Boston, subsequently blocked it from going into effect. On Truth Social, Trump hailed Friday's ruling as a 'GIANT WIN.' Material from the Associated Press was used in this story. Chicopee's next budget is 6% hike from this year. Here's where spending has increased Trump says he's terminating trade talks with Canada over tax on technology firms Mass. lawmakers get a deal; gun for first on-time (ish) state budget in years 'You have been the worst': Secretary Hegseth blasts former Fox colleague Healey slams Trump for canceling $45M to protect farms, forests and wetlands in WMass and beyond Read the original article on MassLive.
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Supreme Court Curbs Judges in Birthright Case as Trump Touts Win
A divided SCOTUS left unresolved a fight over President Trump's restrictions on automatic birthright citizenship. The 6-3 ruling said Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship at a minimum won't take effect for 30 days. Erik Larson explains. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
What's next for birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court's ruling
WASHINGTON (AP) — The legal battle over President Donald Trump's move to end birthright citizenship is far from over despite the Republican administration's major victory Friday limiting nationwide injunctions. Immigrant advocates are vowing to fight to ensure birthright citizenship remains the law as the Republican president tries to do away with more than a century of precedent. The high court's ruling sends cases challenging the president's birthright citizenship executive order back to the lower courts. But the ultimate fate of the president's policy remains uncertain. Here's what to know about birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court's ruling and what happens next. What does birthright citizenship mean? Birthright citizenship makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The practice goes back to soon after the Civil War, when Congress ratified the Constitution's 14th Amendment, in part to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship. 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,' the amendment states. Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, was refused re-entry into the U.S. after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court explicitly ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., no matter their parents' legal status. It has been seen since then as an intrinsic part of U.S. law, with only a handful of exceptions, such as for children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats. Trump has long said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship Trump's executive order, signed in Januar,y seeks to deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. It's part of the hardline immigration agenda of the president, who has called birthright citizenship a 'magnet for illegal immigration.' Trump and his supporters focus on one phrase in the amendment — 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' – saying it means the U.S. can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally. A series of federal judges have said that's not true, and issued nationwide injunctions stopping his order from taking effect. 'I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,' U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said at a hearing earlier this year in his Seattle courtroom. In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that 'the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected and no court in the country has ever endorsed' Trump's interpretation of birthright citizenship. Is Trump's order constitutional? The justices didn't say The high court's ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration in that it limited an individual judge's authority in granting nationwide injunctions. The administration hailed the ruling as a monumental check on the powers of individual district court judges, whom Trump supporters have argued want to usurp the president's authority with rulings blocking his priorities around immigration and other matters. But the Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump's bid to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order. 'The Trump administration made a strategic decision, which I think quite clearly paid off, that they were going to challenge not the judges' decisions on the merits, but on the scope of relief,' said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the administration is 'very confident' that the high court will ultimately side with the administration on the merits of the case. Questions and uncertainty swirl around next steps The justices kicked the cases challenging the birthright citizenship policy back down to the lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the new ruling. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days, giving lower courts and the parties time to sort out the next steps. The Supreme Court's ruling leaves open the possibility that groups challenging the policy could still get nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits and seek certification as a nationwide class. Within hours after the ruling, two class-action suits had been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire seeking to block Trump's order. But obtaining nationwide relief through a class action is difficult as courts have put up hurdles to doing so over the years, said Suzette Malveaux, a Washington and Lee University law school professor. 'It's not the case that a class action is a sort of easy, breezy way of getting around this problem of not having nationwide relief,' said Malveaux, who had urged the high court not to eliminate the nationwide injunctions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who penned the court's dissenting opinion, urged the lower courts to 'act swiftly on such requests for relief and to adjudicate the cases as quickly as they can so as to enable this Court's prompt review" in cases 'challenging policies as blatantly unlawful and harmful as the Citizenship Order.' Opponents of Trump's order warned there would be a patchwork of polices across the states, leading to chaos and confusion without nationwide relief. 'Birthright citizenship has been settled constitutional law for more than a century," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit that supports refugees and migrants. 'By denying lower courts the ability to enforce that right uniformly, the Court has invited chaos, inequality, and fear.' ____ Associated Press reporters Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed.
