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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The US supreme court has dramatically expanded the powers of the president
Those of us who cover the US supreme court are faced, every June, with a peculiar challenge: whether to describe what the supreme court is doing, or what is claims that it is doing. What the supreme court says it was doing in Friday's 6-3 decision in Trump v Casa, Inc, the birthright citizenship case, is narrowing the power of federal district judges to issue nationwide injunctions, in deference to presidential authority. The case effectively ends the ability of federal judges on lower courts to issue nationwide stays of executive actions that violate the constitution, federal law, and the rights of citizens. And so what the court has actually done is dramatically expand the rights of the president – this president – to nullify constitutional provisions at will. The ruling curtails nationwide injunctions against Trump's order ending birthright citizenship – meaning that while lawsuits against the order proceed, the court has unleashed a chaotic patchwork of rights enforceability. The Trump administration's ban on birthright citizenship will not be able to go into effect in jurisdictions where there is no ongoing lawsuit, or where judges have not issued regional stays. And so the supreme court creates, for the foreseeable future, a jurisprudence of citizenship in which babies born in some parts of the country will be presumptive citizens, while those born elsewhere will not. More broadly the decision means that going forward, the enforceable rights and entitlements of Americans will now be dependent on the state they reside in and the status of ongoing litigation in that district at any given time. Donald Trump, personally, will now have the presumptive power to persecute you, and nullify your rights in defiance of the constitution, at his discretion. You can't stop him unless and until you can get a lawyer, a hearing, and a narrow order from a sympathetic judge. 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' writes Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by the court's other two liberals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing separately, adds that the decision is 'profoundly dangerous, since it gives the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate'. She also calls the ruling an 'existential threat to the rule of law'. The case concerns an executive order by the Trump administration, issued the day that Trump returned to office, purporting to end birthright citizenship – in defiance of the 14th amendment. When immigrant rights groups, representing American newborns and their migrant parents, sued the Trump administration to enforce their clients' constitutional rights, a nationwide injunction was issued which paused the Trump administration's plainly illegal order from going into effect while the lawsuit proceeded. These injunctions are a standard tool in the arsenal of federal judges, and an essential check on executive power: when the president does something wildly illegal, as Trump did, the courts can use injunctions to prevent those illegal actions from causing harm to Americans while litigation is ongoing. Nationwide injunctions have become more common in the Trump era, if only because Trump himself routinely does plainly illegal things that have the potential to hurt people and strip them of their rights nationwide. But they are not used exclusively against Republican presidents, or in order to obstruct rightwing policy efforts. Throughout the Obama and Biden administrations, Republican appointed judges routinely stymied their policy agendas with national injunctions; the Roberts court blessed these efforts. But once Donald Trump returned to power, the court adopted a newer, narrower vision of judges' prerogatives – or at least, of the prerogatives of judges who are not them. They have, with this ruling, given Donald Trump the sweeping and unprecedented authority to claim presumptive legality of even the most fundamental of American rights: the right of American-born persons to call themselves American at all. Part of why the supreme court's behavior creates dilemmas for pundits is that the court is acting in with a shameless and exceptional degree of bad faith, such that describing their own accounts of their actions would mean participating in a condescending deception of the reader. In her opinion for the conservative majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett says that the court is merely deferring to the rights of the executive, and ensuring that the president has the freedom to do what the voters elected him to do. Putting aside the ouroboros-like nature of the majority's conception of electoral legitimacy –that having received a majority of Americans' votes would somehow entitle Donald Trump to strip them of the rights that made those votes free, meaningful, and informed in the first place – the assertion is also one of bad faith. Because the truth is that this court's understanding of the scope of executive power is not principled; it is not even grounded in the bad history that Barrett trots out to illustrate her point about the sweeping power of other executives in the historical tradition – like the king of England. Rather, the court expands and contracts its vision of what the president is allowed to do based on the political affiliation of the president that is currently in office. When a Democrat is the president, their vision of executive power contracts. When a Republican is in office, it dramatically expands. That is because these people's loyalty is not to the constitution, or to a principled reading of the law. It is to their political priors. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Another danger of reporting the court's own account of itself to readers is this: that it can distract from the real stakes of the case. In this decision, the court did not, technically, reach the merits of Trump's absurd and insulting claim that the constitution somehow does not create a birthright entitlement to citizenship. But in the meantime, many children – the American-born infants of immigrant parents – will be denied the right that the 14th amendment plainly guarantees them. The rightwing legal movement, and the Trumpist judges who have advanced it, have long believed that really, this is a white man's country – and that the 14th amendment, with its guarantees of equal protection and its vision of a pluralist nation of equals, living together in dignity across difference – was an error. Those babies, fully American despite their differences and their parents' histories, are squirming, cooing testaments to that better, more just future. They, and the hope that they represent, are more American than Trump and his crony judges will ever be. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Sky News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Trump's 'giant win' frees him up to push on with his agenda with fewer blocks and barriers
As the president himself said, this was a "giant" of a decision - a significant moment to end a week of whiplash-inducing news. The decision by the US Supreme Court is a big win for President Donald Trump. By a majority of 6-3, the highest court in the land has ruled that federal judges have been overreaching in their authority by blocking or freezing the executive orders issued by the president. Over the last few months, a series of presidential actions by Trump have been blocked by injunctions issued by federal district judges. The federal judges, branded "radical leftist lunatics" by the president, have ruled on numerous individual cases, most involving immigration. They have then applied their rulings as nationwide injunctions - thus blocking the Trump administration's policies. "It was a grave threat to democracy frankly," the president said at a hastily arranged news conference in the White House briefing room. "Instead of merely ruling on the immediate case before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation," he said. In simple terms, this ruling, from a Supreme Court weighted towards conservative judges, frees up the president to push on with his agenda, less opposed by the courts. "This is such a big day…," the president said. "It gives power back to people that should have it, including Congress, including the presidency, and it only takes bad power away from judges. It takes bad power, sick power and unfair power. "And it's really going to be... a very monumental decision." The country's most senior member of the Democratic Party was to the point with his reaction to the ruling. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called it "an unprecedented and terrifying step toward authoritarianism, a grave danger to our democracy, and a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court". In a statement, Schumer wrote: "By weakening the power of district courts to check the presidency, the Court is not defending the Constitution - it's defacing it. "This ruling hands Donald Trump yet another green light in his crusade to unravel the foundations of American democracy." 2:57 Federal power in the US is, constitutionally, split equally between the three branches of government - the executive branch (the presidency), the legislative branch (Congress) and the judiciary (the Supreme Court and other federal courts). They are designed to ensure a separation of power and to ensure that no single branch becomes too powerful. This ruling was prompted by a case brought over an executive order issued by President Trump on his inauguration day to end birthright citizenship - that constitutional right to be an American citizen if born here. A federal judge froze the decision, ruling it to be in defiance of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has deferred its judgement on this particular case, instead ruling more broadly on the powers of the federal judges. The court was divided along ideological lines, with conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent. 👉 Follow Trump100 on your podcast app 👈 In her dissent, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote: "As I understand the concern, in this clash over the respective powers of two coordinate branches of Government, the majority sees a power grab - but not by a presumably lawless Executive choosing to act in a manner that flouts the plain text of the Constitution. "Instead, to the majority, the power-hungry actors are... (wait for it)... the district courts." Another liberal Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, described the majority ruling by her fellow justices as: "Nothing less than an open invitation for the government to bypass the constitution." Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump appointed during his first term, shifting the balance of left-right power in the court, led this particular ruling. Writing for the majority, she said: "When a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too." The focus now for those who deplore this decision will be to apply 'class action' - to file lawsuits on behalf of a large group of people rather than applying a single case to the whole nation. There is no question though that the president and his team will feel significantly emboldened to push through their policy agenda with fewer blocks and barriers. The ruling ends a giddy week for the president. 0:51 Last Saturday he ordered the US military to bomb Iran's nuclear sites. Within two days he had forced both Israel and Iran to a ceasefire. By mid-week he was in The Hague for the NATO summit where the alliance members had agreed to his defence spending demands. At an Oval Office event late on Friday, where he presided over the signing of a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, he also hinted at a possible ceasefire "within a week" in Gaza.
NHK
5 hours 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.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump signals full steam ahead after momentous Supreme Court decision
President Trump said Friday the Supreme Court's decision knocking down nationwide injunctions in a birthright citizenship case would give him full range to proceed with his agenda, particularly on immigration. The court in a 6-3 ruling said district judges in three separate cases when too far in issuing nationwide injunctions. 'Thanks to this decision, we can now properly file to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship, ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding, stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries and numerous other priorities of the American people,' Trump said at a press conference. He added, 'We have so many of them. I have a whole list.' Trump also railed against 'radical left judges' who he said had used nationwide injunctions to 'overrule the rightful powers of the president' to stop illegal immigration. '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. Trump also argued nationwide injunctions were 'a colossal abuse of power' that allowed a federal judge to 'dictate the law for the entire nation.' 'In practice, this meant that if any one of the nearly 700 federal judges disagree with the policy of the duly elected president of the United States, he or she could block that policy from going into effect, or at least delay it for many years tied up in the court system,' Trump said. Friday's ruling does not resolve whether Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional, but 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. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the administration is going to 'follow the law' when it comes to implementing the birthright order when asked whether there were any plans to try to make it effective immediately. 'We're going to follow the law, we're going to make those decisions, and we're going to do what's right in the bounds of the law,' she said. The Trump administration can now resume developing guidance to implement the order, though it must wait 30 days before attempting to deny citizenship. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully butted heads in dueling opinions on the decision, with Jackson and two other liberal judges dissenting. Jackson wrote that the decision 'gives the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate.' Barrett sharply rebuked Jackson's rhetoric as a 'startling line of attack' and claimed her argument was at odds with centuries of precedent and the Constitution. 'These injunctions — known as 'universal injunctions' — likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,' Barrett wrote for the court's six Republican-appointed justices. Trump thanked Barrett, as well as the other Republican-appointed justices, in the press conference Friday. Trump appointed Barrett and two other members of the six-justice majority. 'I'm grateful to the Supreme Court for stepping in and solving this very big and complex problem,' he said. When asked about backlash toward Barrett from some of Trump's most fervent supporters over an immigration case in April, the president said he wasn't aware of the ire. 'I don't know about that. I just have great respect for her,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The US supreme court has dramatically expanded the powers of the president
Those of us who cover the US supreme court are faced, every June, with a peculiar challenge: whether to describe what the supreme court is doing, or what is claims that it is doing. What the supreme court says it was doing in Friday's 6-3 decision in Trump v Casa, Inc, the birthright citizenship case, is narrowing the power of federal district judges to issue nationwide injunctions, in deference to presidential authority. The case effectively ends the ability of federal judges on lower courts to issue nationwide stays of executive actions that violate the constitution, federal law, and the rights of citizens. And so what the court has actually done is dramatically expand the rights of the president – this president – to nullify constitutional provisions at will. The ruling curtails nationwide injunctions against Trump's order ending birthright citizenship – meaning that while lawsuits against the order proceed, the court has unleashed a chaotic patchwork of rights enforceability. The Trump administration's ban on birthright citizenship will not be able to go into effect in jurisdictions where there is no ongoing lawsuit, or where judges have not issued regional stays. And so the supreme court creates, for the foreseeable future, a jurisprudence of citizenship in which babies born in some parts of the country will be presumptive citizens, while those born elsewhere will not. More broadly the decision means that going forward, the enforceable rights and entitlements of Americans will now be dependent on the state they reside in and the status of ongoing litigation in that district at any given time. Donald Trump, personally, will now have the presumptive power to persecute you, and nullify your rights in defiance of the constitution, at his discretion. You can't stop him unless and until you can get a lawyer, a hearing, and a narrow order from a sympathetic judge. 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' writes Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by the court's other two liberals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing separately, adds that the decision is 'profoundly dangerous, since it gives the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate'. She also calls the ruling an 'existential threat to the rule of law'. The case concerns an executive order by the Trump administration, issued the day that Trump returned to office, purporting to end birthright citizenship – in defiance of the 14th amendment. When immigrant rights groups, representing American newborns and their migrant parents, sued the Trump administration to enforce their clients' constitutional rights, a nationwide injunction was issued which paused the Trump administration's plainly illegal order from going into effect while the lawsuit proceeded. These injunctions are a standard tool in the arsenal of federal judges, and an essential check on executive power: when the president does something wildly illegal, as Trump did, the courts can use injunctions to prevent those illegal actions from causing harm to Americans while litigation is ongoing. Nationwide injunctions have become more common in the Trump era, if only because Trump himself routinely does plainly illegal things that have the potential to hurt people and strip them of their rights nationwide. But they are not used exclusively against Republican presidents, or in order to obstruct rightwing policy efforts. Throughout the Obama and Biden administrations, Republican appointed judges routinely stymied their policy agendas with national injunctions; the Roberts court blessed these efforts. But once Donald Trump returned to power, the court adopted a newer, narrower vision of judges' prerogatives – or at least, of the prerogatives of judges who are not them. They have, with this ruling, given Donald Trump the sweeping and unprecedented authority to claim presumptive legality of even the most fundamental of American rights: the right of American-born persons to call themselves American at all. Part of why the supreme court's behavior creates dilemmas for pundits is that the court is acting in with a shameless and exceptional degree of bad faith, such that describing their own accounts of their actions would mean participating in a condescending deception of the reader. In her opinion for the conservative majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett says that the court is merely deferring to the rights of the executive, and ensuring that the president has the freedom to do what the voters elected him to do. Putting aside the ouroboros-like nature of the majority's conception of electoral legitimacy –that having received a majority of Americans' votes would somehow entitle Donald Trump to strip them of the rights that made those votes free, meaningful, and informed in the first place – the assertion is also one of bad faith. Because the truth is that this court's understanding of the scope of executive power is not principled; it is not even grounded in the bad history that Barrett trots out to illustrate her point about the sweeping power of other executives in the historical tradition – like the king of England. Rather, the court expands and contracts its vision of what the president is allowed to do based on the political affiliation of the president that is currently in office. When a Democrat is the president, their vision of executive power contracts. When a Republican is in office, it dramatically expands. That is because these people's loyalty is not to the constitution, or to a principled reading of the law. It is to their political priors. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Another danger of reporting the court's own account of itself to readers is this: that it can distract from the real stakes of the case. In this decision, the court did not, technically, reach the merits of Trump's absurd and insulting claim that the constitution somehow does not create a birthright entitlement to citizenship. But in the meantime, many children – the American-born infants of immigrant parents – will be denied the right that the 14th amendment plainly guarantees them. The rightwing legal movement, and the Trumpist judges who have advanced it, have long believed that really, this is a white man's country – and that the 14th amendment, with its guarantees of equal protection and its vision of a pluralist nation of equals, living together in dignity across difference – was an error. Those babies, fully American despite their differences and their parents' histories, are squirming, cooing testaments to that better, more just future. They, and the hope that they represent, are more American than Trump and his crony judges will ever be. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
