5 takeaways from the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling

The Hill

4 hours ago

The Supreme Court handed President Trump a clear victory Friday, stopping judges from issuing nationwide injunctions that block his executive order narrowing birthright citizenship.
But the cases aren't over yet, as a new phase of the battle commences in the lower courts.
Here are five takeaways from the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling.
Friday's opinion came from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's third appointee to the court who has recently faced a barrage of criticism from the president's own supporters.
The heat grew as Barrett this spring ruled against the administration in several emergency cases, including Trump's bid to freeze foreign aid payments and efforts to swiftly deport alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.
By tradition, the most senior member of the majority decides who authors the opinion. So, Chief Justice John Roberts would've assigned Barrett as the author soon after the May 15 oral arguments.
On Friday, Barrett ultimately wrote for all five of her fellow Republican-appointed justices, being the face of the Trump administration's major win.
Barrett rejected the challengers' notion that nationwide injunctions were needed as a powerful tool to check the executive branch.
'Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them. When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,' she wrote.
Though the court curtailed nationwide injunctions, the decision leaves the door open for plaintiffs to try to seek broad relief by pursuing class action lawsuits.
Within hours, one group of plaintiffs quickly took the hint.
A coalition of expectant mothers and immigration organizations suing asked a district judge in Maryland to issue a new ruling that applies to anyone designated as ineligible for birthright citizenship under Trump's order — the same practical effect as a nationwide injunction.
The Democratic-led states suing are also vowing to press ahead.
'We remain hopeful that the courts will see that a patchwork of injunctions is unworkable, creating administrative chaos for California and others and harm to countless families across our country. The fight is far from over,' California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement.
And the American Civil Liberties Union brought an entirely new lawsuit Friday seeking to do the same.
The efforts could quickly bring the birthright citizenship battle back to the Supreme Court.
'In cases where classwide or set-aside relief has been awarded, the losing side in the lower courts will likewise regularly come to this Court if the matter is sufficiently important,' Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a solo concurring opinion.
'When a stay or injunction application arrives here, this Court should not and cannot hide in the tall grass.'
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court's leading conservatives, cautioned lower courts against creating a 'significant loophole' to Friday's decision by stretching when plaintiffs can file class action lawsuits.
'Federal courts should thus be vigilant against such potential abuses of these tools,' Alito wrote, joined by Thomas.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned the chief dissent, arguing that the rule of law is 'not a given' in America and the high court gave up its 'vital role' in preserving it with Friday's opinion.
Joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she claimed that the Trump administration sought to tear down nationwide injunctions because it can't prove the president's order narrowing birthright citizenship is likely constitutional.
Trump's order made a 'solemn mockery' of the Constitution, she said, and his request to instead curtail nationwide injunctions is obvious 'gamesmanship.'
'Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way,' Sotomayor wrote. 'Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.'
Going further than her liberal peers, Jackson wrote in a solo dissent that the court's decision was an 'existential threat to the rule of law' — drawing a harsh rebuke from Barrett, a dramatic exchange between the two most junior justices.
Jackson argued that the majority uses legalese to obscure a more basic question at the heart of the case: 'May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?'
'It is not difficult to predict how this all ends,' Jackson wrote. 'Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.'
At another point, she said that 'everyone, from the President on down, is bound by law,' suggesting that the Trump administration's efforts to 'vanquish' universal injunctions amounts to a request for permission to 'engage in unlawful behavior' — and that the majority gave the president just that.
The rhetoric in Jackson's opinion amounts to a 'startling line of attack,' Barrett said, condemning her argument as 'extreme.'
'We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing 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.'
She urged Jackson to 'heed her own admonition' that everyone, from the president down, is bound by law.
'That goes for judges too,' Barrett said.
Trump and his allies hailed the ruling as a decisive victory for his administration, promising to move his sweeping second term agenda forward with judges' power significantly curtailed.
'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 at a press conference Friday afternoon.
He specifically slammed 'radical left judges' he said used nationwide injunctions as a tool to 'overrule the rightful powers of the president' to stop illegal immigration.
The decision means his administration can now move forward on a 'whole list' of policy priorities that were frozen nationwide by federal judges, he argued, from birthright citizenship to freezing federal funding.
'We have so many of them,' Trump said.