Latest news with #federalcourts
New York Times
2 hours 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.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court gives Trump more power after ‘birthright citizenship' ruling curbs nationwide injunctions
The Supreme Court's conservative majority has stripped federal courts' authority to issue nationwide injunctions that have blocked key parts of Donald Trump's agenda. Friday's 6-3 ruling, written by Trump appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett, states that federal judges went too far blocking his executive order that seeks to unilaterally redefine who gets to be a citizen. Those nationwide injunctions 'exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to the federal courts,' according to the ruling. The ruling opens the door for partial enforcement of Trump's executive order, putting thousands of American-born children at risk of being denied their constitutional rights. Trump's executive order will be blocked for another 30 days, however, allowing lower courts to revisit the scope of their injunctions and giving time for opponents to file new legal challenges. Department of Justice attorneys will now 'promptly file' legal challenges in cases where the president's executive actions were temporarily blocked, Trump told reporters at the White House. Moments after the ruling, plaintiffs filed a new lawsuit that would protect citizenship rights for all newborn Americans, not just in the states that initially sued. But the ruling does not definitively resolve challenges to birthright citizenship. A series of federal court rulings across the country earlier this year struck down the president's attempt to block citizenship from newborn Americans who are born to certain immigrant parents. The government argued those decisions should only impact the individual states — and the unborn children of pregnant mothers in them — who sued him and won. Opponents have warned that such a decision would open a backdoor to begin stripping away constitutional rights. In a blistering dissent, Justices Sonia Sotomayor called the court's ruling 'a travesty for the rule of law.' Allowing the president to unilaterally redefine who gets to be a U.S. citizen in states subject to Trump's rewriting of the 14th Amendment would create a patchwork system of constitutional rights and citizenship benefits — including voting rights. More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship every year under Trump's order, according to the plaintiffs. 'Make no mistake: Today's ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected,' Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent. The court's decision gifted Trump the 'prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law' that opens the door to 'put both our legal system, and our system of government, in grave jeopardy,' Jackson warned. 'It is not difficult to predict how this all ends,' she wrote. 'Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more." In January, more than 20 states, immigrants' advocacy groups and pregnant plaintiffs sued the administration to block the president's executive order. Three federal judges and appellate court panels argued his order is unconstitutional and blocked the measure from taking effect nationwide while legal challenges continue. During oral arguments, the Supreme Court's liberal justices appeared shocked at the president's 'unlawful' measure. But the administration used the case not necessarily to argue over whether he can change the 14th Amendment but to target what has become a major obstacle to advancing Trump's agenda: federal judges blocking aggressive executive actions. The government asked the court to limit the authority of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have imperilled a bulk of the president's agenda. In cases across the country, plaintiffs have pushed for injunctions as a tool for critical checks and balances against an administration that critics warn is mounting an ongoing assault against the rule of law. More than half of the injunctions issued over the last 70 years were against the Trump administration, according to the Harvard Law Review, as Trump pushed the limits of his authority. In arguments to the Supreme Court, Trump's personal attorney John Sauer, who was appointed by the president to serve as U.S. solicitor general, called the 'cascade of universal injunctions' against the administration a 'bipartisan problem' that exceeds judicial authority. Trump's allies, however, have relied on nationwide injunctions to do the very same thing they commanded the Supreme Court to strike down. Critics have accused right-wing legal groups of 'judge shopping' for ideologically like-minded venues where they can sue to strike down — through nationwide injunctions — policies with which they disagree. After the government's arguments fell flat in front of a mostly skeptical Supreme Court last month, Trump accused his political opponents of 'playing the ref' through the courts to overturn his threat to the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment plainly 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.' For more than 100 years, the Supreme Court has upheld the definition to apply to all children born within the United States. But under the terms of Trump's order, children can be denied citizenship if a mother is undocumented or is temporarily legally in the country on a visa, and if the father isn't a citizen or a lawful permanent resident. The president's attempt to redefine citizenship is central to his administration's sweeping anti-immigration agenda. His administration has also effectively ended entry for asylum seekers; declared the United States under 'invasion' from foreign gangs to summarily remove alleged members; and stripped legal protections for more than 1 million people — radically expanding the pool of 'undocumented' people now vulnerable for arrest and removal. The administration 'de-legalised' tens of thousands of immigrants, and thousands of people with pending immigration cases are being ordered to court each week only to have those cases dismissed, with federal agents waiting to arrest them on the other side of the courtroom doors. The White House has also rolled back protections barring immigration arrests at sensitive locations like churches and bumped up the pace of immigration raids in the interior of the country. To carry out the arrests, the administration has tapped resources from other state and local agencies while moving officers from federal agencies like the FBI and DEA to focus on immigration. There are more people in immigration detention centers today than in any other point in modern history.
New York Times
21 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
How the Supreme Court's Ruling Could Revive Some Contested Trump Policies
The Supreme Court's opinion setting new limits on the power of district-court judges to use one of their most potent tools — nationwide injunctions — marks the beginning of a profound shift in the way the federal courts do business. Before, more than 1,000 judges had the power to issue nationwide orders that could stop the federal government in its tracks. Now, those judges' rulings can only apply to the actual plaintiffs in the case. Friday's opinion could affect any case, on any issue, where a federal judge makes a ruling that extends beyond the party or parties that actually brought the lawsuit. It left open the possibility that judges could still block government actions nationwide, but only in situations where there was no narrower approach available that would protect the actual plaintiffs whom the court is seeking to benefit. Friday's ruling will lead to a drastic reduction in the federal courts' ability to check the White House, according to Judith Resnik, a professor at Yale Law School. Nationwide injunctions give courts 'the capacity to tell the key nationwide actor, the executive branch, to behave lawfully,' she said. District-court judges have repeatedly used nationwide injunctions to block Trump administration policies, including to halt the firing of civil servants, the defunding of foreign aid and the relocation of transgender women in federal prisons to men's housing. Some of those injunctions have been lifted by higher courts; many, including those detailed below, remain in place, at least for now. While some scholars trace the origins of nationwide injunctions, also known as 'universal' injunctions, back to the early 20th century, their widespread use as a check on presidential power is relatively new and has been wielded against presidents of both parties. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Independent
a day ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Supreme Court rules in Trump birthright citizenship case
The Supreme Court's conservative majority has stripped federal courts' authority to issue nationwide injunctions that have blocked key parts of Donald Trump's agenda. The court's anticipated ruling in a case attached to a question of whether the president can unilaterally redefine who gets to be a citizen states that nationwide injunctions 'exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to the federal courts.' A series of federal court rulings across the country struck down the president's attempt to block citizenship from newborn Americans who are born to certain immigrant parents. But the government argues those decisions should only impact the individual states — and the unborn children of pregnant mothers in them — who sued him and won. Opponents have warned that such a decision would open a backdoor to begin stripping constitutional rights. Allowing the president to unilaterally redefine who gets to be a U.S. citizen in states subject to Trump's unilateral rewriting of the 14th Amendment would create a patchwork system of constitutional rights and citizenship benefits — including voting rights. More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship every year under Trump's order, according to the plaintiffs. In January, more than 20 states, immigrants' advocacy groups and pregnant plaintiffs sued the administration to block the president's executive order that attempts to redefine the Constitution to determine who is eligible for citizenship. Three federal judges and appellate court panels have argued his order is unconstitutional and blocked the measure from taking effect nationwide while legal challenges continue. During oral arguments, the Supreme Court's liberal justices appeared shocked at the president's 'unlawful' measure. But the administration used the case not necessarily to argue over whether he can change the 14th Amendment but to target what has become a major obstacle to advancing Trump's agenda: federal judges blocking aggressive executive actions. The government asked the court to limit the authority of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have imperiled a bulk of the president's agenda, which has thus far been dictated largely through an avalanche of executive orders, not legislation. The government pushed the Supreme Court to reduce the federal judiciary's power to issue nationwide injunctions, cutting off one of the few critical checks and balances against an administration that critics warn is mounting an ongoing assault against the rule of law. More than half of the injunctions issued over the last 70 years were against the Trump administration, according to the Harvard Law Review, as Trump pushed the limits of his authority. In Trump's first term in office, his administration faced 64 injunctions, compared to 14 injunctions against Joe Biden and 12 against Barack Obama The second administration faced 17 within its first two months. In arguments to the Supreme Court, Trump's personal attorney John Sauer, who was appointed by the president to serve as U.S. solicitor general, called the 'cascade of universal injunctions' against the administration a 'bipartisan problem' that exceeds judicial authority. 'The vision of the district courts that's reflected in the issuance of these nationwide injunctions is a vision of them as a roving commission to correct every legal wrong that they can consider and to exercise general legal oversight over the executive branch,' he said. Trump's allies, however, have relied on nationwide injunctions to do the very same thing they commanded the Supreme Court to strike down. Critics have accused right-wing legal groups of 'judge shopping' for ideologically like-minded venues where they can sue to strike down — through nationwide injunctions — policies with which they disagree. After the government's arguments fell flat in front of a mostly skeptical Supreme Court last month, Trump accused his political opponents of 'playing the ref' through the courts to overturn his threat to the 14th Amendment. 'The Radical Left SleazeBags, which has no cards remaining in its illegal bag of tricks, is, in a very coordinated manner, PLAYING THE REF with regard to the United States Supreme Court,' Trump wrote. 'They lost the Election in a landslide, and with it, have totally lost their confidence and reason. They are stone cold CRAZY! I hope the Supreme Court doesn't fall for the games they play,' he added. In a separate post, written in all-caps, he claimed the nation's high court is 'BEING PLAYED BY THE RADICAL LEFT LOSERS' whose 'ONLY HOPE IS THE INTIMIDATION OF THE COURT, ITSELF.' The 14th Amendment plainly 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.' But under the terms of Trump's order, children can be denied citizenship if a mother is undocumented or is temporarily legally in the country on a visa, and if the father isn't a citizen or a lawful permanent resident. The president's attempt to define a key component of the 14th Amendment is central to his administration's sweeping anti-immigration agenda. His administration has effectively ended entry for asylum seekers, declaring the United States under 'invasion' from foreign gangs to summarily remove alleged members, and stripped legal protections for more than 1 million people — radically expanding the pool of 'undocumented' people now vulnerable for arrest and removal. The administration has also effectively 'de-legalized' tens of thousands of immigrants, and thousands of people with pending immigration cases are being ordered to court each week only to have those cases dismissed, with federal agents waiting to arrest them on the other side of the courtroom doors. The White House has also rolled back protections barring immigration arrests at sensitive locations like churches and bumped up the pace of immigration raids in the interior of the country. To carry out the arrests, the administration has tapped resources from other state and local agencies while moving officers from federal agencies like the FBI and DEA to focus on immigration.
CBS News
06-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump-Musk feud live updates on fight between president and world's richest man
Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
