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A year after the Supreme Court permitted cities to ban public camping, local authorities are cracking down on street homelessness. At least 163 municipalities have enacted camping restrictions since the ruling. California, the epicentre of the problem in America, has seen its Democratic leaders rapidly shift their tone as the crisis worsens. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan tells us how he's trying to fix it.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Abstruse yet monumental: the scope and impact of the US supreme court's birthright citizenship ruling
The US supreme court opinion on Friday in a case challenging Donald Trump's attempt to unilaterally end the country's longstanding tradition of birthright citizenship doesn't actually rule on the constitutionality of the president's order. That question – of whether the president can do away with a right guaranteed by the the fourteenth amendment to the US constitution – is still being debated in the lower courts. Instead, the supreme court focused on the question of whether individual district court judges could block federal policies nationwide. The decision is both abstruse and monumental, experts say. It doesn't immediately change anything about how citizenship is granted in the US, and it profoundly shifts the ways in which the federal courts work. To help understand the implications of the ruling, the Guardian spoke with Efrén Olivares, vice-president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, a non-profit advocacy group. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. First, what exactly does the supreme court's ruling mean, today, for immigrants across the US who are expecting parents? The immediate impact is null. The supreme court explicitly said for the next 30 days, the executive order ending birthright citizenship will not go into effect. The right to citizenship by birth in the United States continues. Anyone born today, tomorrow, next week, two weeks from now in the US will be a citizen. We can anticipate that before those 30 days run out, there will be another ruling from one of the trial courts or district courts that will shed more light on this issue long-term. Does this mean that states and immigrant rights' groups that have sued over Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors will have to change how they are challenging the policy? There were three lawsuits filed on behalf of individuals and organizations against this executive order. All three were seeking to enjoin – which means stop – the enforcement of this executive order. Because it's an executive order of national scope, the rulings of the lower courts in these cases were national in scope, right? Then, the supreme court chimed in and said that is inappropriate for a court to block a policy nationwide, and that a court's ruling should only apply to the plaintiffs or parties right in front of them. So now, those challenging the order may move to seek a class certification, essentially to pursue a class-action lawsuit. Already, the immigration aid groups Casa and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project have filed an amended complaint seeking class-action relief in their challenge to Trump's birthright citizenship order. Class-action litigation has existed for years, and what that means is that now the party in front of the court is asking the court to rule not just on its own behalf, but also on behalf of everyone else similarly situated. The class-action suits are most commonly used in cases where people are seeking monetary relief – for example, in instances where there are defects in car manufacturing. In that type of case, anyone who bought this type of car between X and Y dates would be entitled to compensation. The supreme court ruling could now make class-action litigation much more common. How might the supreme court's ruling here impact other immigration cases? Because up to this point, federal judges' authority to freeze policies across the US – with so-called 'nationwide injunctions' – has served as a powerful check on executive power. It has been used to block policies instituted by both Democratic and Republican administrations. What is ironic is that the supreme court has been perfectly fine with nationwide injunctions in the past. For example, justices enjoined the Biden administration's cancellation of student loans. And they had no problem with a nationwide injunction in that case. This latest ruling on injunctions will affect any case that challenges a policy with national implications. We are particularly tracking the deployment of federal or military troops to do immigration enforcement, and continuation of unlawful, discriminatory enforcement of immigration laws on the basis of race. But this ruling will impact lots of cases. It can be immigration policy, it can be an environmental policy, it can be a voting rights policy – all of those things are regulated at the federal level. So now, if federal policy is challenged, unless it is challenged in a nationwide class-action lawsuit, a lower court's ruling would only apply in the state or states where that policy is challenged? Yes, we may have a patchwork of rulings that vary depending on what state you live in. One of the challenges to the birthright citizenship order, for example, was brought by individuals and organizations in Maryland, DC and Massachusetts. If that case is successful, but you live in Nebraska or Wisconsin or Texas, you may not have the same rights to citizenship as if you are in Maryland, DC or Massachusetts. That is totally inconsistent with our system of law for 250 years. In the supreme court's majority opinion, justice Amy Coney Barrett even alluded to the infeasibility of citizenship rules being different in different states. She summarizes the plaintiffs' argument that ''patchwork injunction' would prove unworkable, because it would require [the states] to track and verify the immigration status of the parents of every child, along with the birth state of every child for whom they provide certain federally funded benefits'. And she ultimately writes that courts can issue injunctions to ensure that a victorious plaintiff receives 'complete relief'. What exactly does that mean? I think they're trying to leave the door open for nationwide injunctions to be OK in certain contexts, and it's unclear what those contexts will be. If you have a national, nationwide class action, a nationwide injunction is the only way to give relief to everyone in the class. Still, in practice, I am worried that the language of the ruling lends itself to inconsistent applications based on the court's or the judge's political ideologies.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Immigrants scramble for clarity after Supreme Court birthright ruling
WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling tied to birthright citizenship prompted confusion and phone calls to lawyers as people who could be affected tried to process a convoluted legal decision with major humanitarian implications. The court's conservative majority on Friday granted President Donald Trump his request to curb federal judges' power but did not decide the legality of his bid to restrict birthright citizenship. That outcome has raised more questions than answers about a right long understood to be guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution: that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen at birth, regardless of their parents' citizenship or legal status. Lorena, a 24-year-old Colombian asylum seeker who lives in Houston and is due to give birth in September, pored over media reports on Friday morning. She was looking for details about how her baby might be affected, but said she was left confused and worried. "There are not many specifics," said Lorena, who like others interviewed by Reuters asked to be identified by her first name out of fear for her safety. "I don't understand it well." She is concerned that her baby could end up with no nationality. "I don't know if I can give her mine," she said. "I also don't know how it would work, if I can add her to my asylum case. I don't want her to be adrift with no nationality." Trump, a Republican, issued an order after taking office in January that directed U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the U.S. who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident. The order was blocked by three separate U.S. district court judges, sending the case on a path to the Supreme Court. The resulting decision said Trump's policy could go into effect in 30 days but appeared to leave open the possibility of further proceedings in the lower courts that could keep the policy blocked. On Friday afternoon, plaintiffs filed an amended lawsuit, opens new tab in federal court in Maryland seeking to establish a nationwide class of people whose children could be denied citizenship. If they are not blocked nationwide, the restrictions could be applied in the 28 states that did not contest them in court, creating "an extremely confusing patchwork" across the country, according to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst for the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute. "Would individual doctors, individual hospitals be having to try to figure out how to determine the citizenship of babies and their parents?" she said. The drive to restrict birthright citizenship is part of Trump's broader immigration crackdown, and he has framed automatic citizenship as a magnet for people to come to give birth. "Hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn't meant for that reason," he said during a White House press briefing on Friday. Immigration advocates and lawyers in some Republican-led states said they received calls from a wide range of pregnant immigrants and their partners following the ruling. They were grappling with how to explain it to clients who could be dramatically affected, given all the unknowns of how future litigation would play out or how the executive order would be implemented state by state. Lynn Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance said she got a call on Friday from an East Asian temporary visa holder with a pregnant wife. He was anxious because Ohio is not one of the plaintiff states and wanted to know how he could protect his child's rights. "He kept stressing that he was very interested in the rights included in the Constitution," she said. Advocates underscored the gravity of Trump's restrictions, which would block an estimated 150,000 children born in the U.S. annually from receiving automatic citizenship. "It really creates different classes of people in the country with different types of rights," said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, a spokesperson for the immigrant rights organization United We Dream. "That is really chaotic." Adding uncertainty, the Supreme Court ruled that members of two plaintiff groups in the litigation - CASA, an immigrant advocacy service in Maryland, and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project - would still be covered by lower court blocks on the policy. Whether someone in a state where Trump's policy could go into effect could join one of the organizations to avoid the restrictions or how state or federal officials would check for membership remained unclear. Betsy, a U.S. citizen who recently graduated from high school in Virginia and a CASA member, said both of her parents came to the U.S. from El Salvador two decades ago and lacked legal status when she was born. "I feel like it targets these innocent kids who haven't even been born," she said, declining to give her last name for concerns over her family's safety. Nivida, a Honduran asylum seeker in Louisiana, is a member of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and recently gave birth. She heard on Friday from a friend without legal status who is pregnant and wonders about the situation under Louisiana's Republican governor, since the state is not one of those fighting Trump's order. "She called me very worried and asked what's going to happen," she said. "If her child is born in Louisiana … is the baby going to be a citizen?"
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Trump wins as Supreme Court curbs judges, but may yet lose on birthright citizenship
WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling blunting a potent weapon that federal judges have used to block government policies nationwide during legal challenges was in many ways a victory for President Donald Trump, except perhaps on the very policy he is seeking to enforce. An executive order that the Republican president signed on his first day back in office in January would restrict birthright citizenship - a far-reaching plan that three federal judges, questioning its constitutionality, quickly halted nationwide through so-called "universal" injunctions. But the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday, while announcing a dramatic shift in how judges have operated for years deploying such relief, left enough room for the challengers to Trump's directive to try to prevent it from taking effect while litigation over its legality plays out. "I do not expect the president's executive order on birthright citizenship will ever go into effect," said Samuel Bray, a Notre Dame Law School professor and a prominent critic of universal injunctions whose work the court's majority cited extensively in Friday's ruling. Trump's executive order directs federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also called a "green card" holder. The three judges found that the order likely violates citizenship language in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. The directive remains blocked while lower courts reconsider the scope of their injunctions, and the Supreme Court said it cannot take effect for 30 days, a window that gives the challengers time to seek further protection from those courts. The court's six conservative justices delivered the majority ruling, granting Trump's request to narrow the injunctions issued by the judges in Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts. Its three liberal members dissented. The ruling by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump appointed to the court in 2020, emphasized the need to hem in the power of judges, warning against an "imperial" judiciary. Judges can provide "complete relief" only to the plaintiffs before them, Barrett wrote. That outcome was a major victory for Trump and his allies, who have repeatedly denounced judges who have impeded his agenda. It could make it easier for the administration to implement his policies, including to accelerate deportations of migrants, restrict transgender rights, curtail diversity and inclusion efforts, and downsize the federal government - many of which have tested the limits of executive power. In the birthright citizenship dispute, the ruling left open the potential for individual plaintiffs to seek relief beyond themselves through class action lawsuits targeting a policy that would upend the long-held understanding that the Constitution confers citizenship on virtually anyone born on U.S. soil. Bray said he expects a surge of new class action cases, resulting in "class-protective" injunctions. "Given that the birthright-citizenship executive order is unconstitutional, I expect courts will grant those preliminary injunctions, and they will be affirmed on appeal," Bray said. Some of the challengers have already taken that path. Plaintiffs in the Maryland case, including expectant mothers and immigrant advocacy groups, asked the presiding judge who had issued a universal injunction to treat the case as a class action to protect all children who would be ineligible for birthright citizenship if the executive order takes effect. "I think in terms of the scope of the relief that we'll ultimately get, there is no difference," said William Powell, one of the lawyers for the Maryland plaintiffs. "We're going to be able to get protection through the class action for everyone in the country whose baby could potentially be covered by the executive order, assuming we succeed." The ruling also sidestepped a key question over whether states that bring lawsuits might need an injunction that applies beyond their borders to address their alleged harms, directing lower courts to answer it first. The challenge to Trump's directive also included 22 states, most of them Democratic-governed, who argued that the financial and administrative burdens they would face required a nationwide block on Trump's order. George Mason University constitutional law expert Ilya Somin said the practical consequences of the ruling will depend on various issues not decided so far by the Supreme Court. "As the majority recognizes, states may be entitled to much broader relief than individuals or private groups," Somin said. New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat who helped lead the case brought in Massachusetts, disagreed with the ruling but sketched out a path forward on Friday. The ruling, Platkin said in a statement, "recognized that nationwide orders can be appropriate to protect the plaintiffs themselves from harm - which is true, and has always been true, in our case." Platkin committed to "keep challenging President Trump's flagrantly unlawful order, which strips American babies of citizenship for the first time since the Civil War" of 1861-1865. Legal experts said they expect a lot of legal maneuvering in lower courts in the weeks ahead, and the challengers still face an uphill battle. Compared to injunctions in individual cases, class actions are often harder to successfully mount. States, too, still do not know whether they have the requisite legal entitlement to sue. Trump's administration said they do not, but the court left that debate unresolved. Meanwhile, the 30-day clock is ticking. If the challengers are unsuccessful going forward, Trump's order could apply in some parts of the country, but not others. "The ruling is set to go into effect 30 days from now and leaves families in states across the country in deep uncertainty about whether their children will be born as U.S. citizens," said Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School's immigrants' rights clinic.
