U.S. Supreme Court ruling gives Trump clearer path to carrying out his agenda
The U.S. 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 President Donald Trump's policies will stand.
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The conservative majority's ruling Friday came in a fight over Trump's plan to limit automatic birthright citizenship. But it may have far-reaching consequences for the ability of U.S. courts to issue orders that apply to anyone affected by a policy, not just the parties who filed lawsuits.
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Trump hailed the decision as a 'monumental victory.' By curbing so-called nationwide injunctions, the ruling could help Trump fend off other challenges to his ambitious agenda. Trump and his allies argued that a single judge generally shouldn't have the power to block a federal government policy across the country.
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'Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the executive branch,' Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court's conservative majority. 'They resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them.'
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'With the stroke of a pen, the president has made a solemn mockery of our Constitution,' Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. 'Rather than stand firm, the court gives way.'
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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.
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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.
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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.
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'Everything is fair game,' said Dan Huff, a lawyer who served in the White House counsel's office during Trump's first term.
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Trump listed cases that they would target, including suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding and 'stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries.'
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