Supreme Court says parents can opt kids out of LGBTQ books in elementary schools
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of parents who objected to LGBTQ-themed books that a Maryland county approved for use in elementary school classrooms. In a 6-3 vote, the court backed the parents' claim that the Montgomery County Board of Education's decision not to allow an opt-out option for their children violated their religious rights.
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The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- 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
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
What's next for birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court's ruling
The legal battle over President Donald Trump 's move to end birthright citizenship is far from over despite the Republican administration's major victory Friday limiting nationwide injunctions. Immigrant advocates are vowing to fight to ensure birthright citizenship remains the law as the Republican president tries to do away with more than a century of precedent. The high court's ruling sends cases challenging the president's birthright citizenship executive order back to the lower courts. But the ultimate fate of the president's policy remains uncertain. Here's what to know about birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court 's ruling and what happens next. Birthright citizenship makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The practice goes back to soon after the Civil War, when Congress ratified the Constitution's 14th Amendment, in part to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship. 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,' the amendment states. Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, was refused re-entry into the U.S. after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court explicitly ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., no matter their parents' legal status. It has been seen since then as an intrinsic part of U.S. law, with only a handful of exceptions, such as for children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats. Trump has long said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship Trump's executive order, signed in Januar,y seeks to deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. It's part of the hardline immigration agenda of the president, who has called birthright citizenship a 'magnet for illegal immigration.' Trump and his supporters focus on one phrase in the amendment — 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' – saying it means the U.S. can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally. A series of federal judges have said that's not true, and issued nationwide injunctions stopping his order from taking effect. 'I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,' U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said at a hearing earlier this year in his Seattle courtroom. In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that 'the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected and no court in the country has ever endorsed' Trump's interpretation of birthright citizenship. Is Trump's order constitutional? The justices didn't say The high court's ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration in that it limited an individual judge's authority in granting nationwide injunctions. The administration hailed the ruling as a monumental check on the powers of individual district court judges, whom Trump supporters have argued want to usurp the president's authority with rulings blocking his priorities around immigration and other matters. But the Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump's bid to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order. 'The Trump administration made a strategic decision, which I think quite clearly paid off, that they were going to challenge not the judges' decisions on the merits, but on the scope of relief,' said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the administration is 'very confident' that the high court will ultimately side with the administration on the merits of the case. Questions and uncertainty swirl around next steps The justices kicked the cases challenging the birthright citizenship policy back down to the lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the new ruling. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days, giving lower courts and the parties time to sort out the next steps. The Supreme Court's ruling leaves open the possibility that groups challenging the policy could still get nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits and seek certification as a nationwide class. Within hours after the ruling, two class-action suits had been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire seeking to block Trump's order. But obtaining nationwide relief through a class action is difficult as courts have put up hurdles to doing so over the years, said Suzette Malveaux, a Washington and Lee University law school professor. 'It's not the case that a class action is a sort of easy, breezy way of getting around this problem of not having nationwide relief,' said Malveaux, who had urged the high court not to eliminate the nationwide injunctions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who penned the court's dissenting opinion, urged the lower courts to 'act swiftly on such requests for relief and to adjudicate the cases as quickly as they can so as to enable this Court's prompt review" in cases 'challenging policies as blatantly unlawful and harmful as the Citizenship Order.' Opponents of Trump's order warned there would be a patchwork of polices across the states, leading to chaos and confusion without nationwide relief. 'Birthright citizenship has been settled constitutional law for more than a century," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit that supports refugees and migrants. 'By denying lower courts the ability to enforce that right uniformly, the Court has invited chaos, inequality, and fear.' ____ Associated Press reporters Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
What comes next after the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling: From the Politics Desk
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team's latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. Happy Friday! The weekend is upon us, unless you're a member of the U.S. Senate who's set to spend the next couple days working on the 'big, beautiful bill.' Today also marks the one-year anniversary of the now-infamous presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. In today's edition, our legal team breaks down what comes next after the Supreme Court's major ruling in the birthright citizenship case. Plus, Kristen Welker previews her exclusive interview this weekend with Zohran Mamdani. — Adam Wollner — Adam Wollner Supreme Court birthright citizenship ruling sparks new round of legal fights By Lawrence Hurley and Gary Grumbach Almost as soon as the Supreme Court released its ruling limiting the ability of judges to block President Donald Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship, challengers brought new legal claims seeking the same result by a different means. While the Supreme Court said judges cannot issue sweeping 'universal injunctions' that can apply nationwide in many cases, it left open the option of plaintiffs seeking broad relief via class action lawsuits. The American Civil Liberties Union filed such a lawsuit in New Hampshire on behalf of immigrants whose children may not obtain U.S. citizenship at birth if Trump's order was to go into effect. In a separate case in Maryland, in which groups had previously obtained a nationwide injunction, lawyers filed an amended complaint seeking similar class-wide relief for anyone affected by Trump's plan within hours of the ruling authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Under Trump's plan, birthright citizenship would be limited to those who have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. That is at odds with the widely accepted understanding of the Constitution's 14th Amendment — that it grants citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., with a few minor exceptions. Samuel Bray, a critic of nationwide injunctions at Notre Dame Law School whose work was cited in the ruling, said both the states and individual plaintiffs can still get broad injunctions against the birthright citizenship executive order, potentially even on a nationwide basis. 'I don't expect the executive order will ever go into effect,' he added. How Trump is responding: At a news conference, Trump made it clear the administration would proactively use the Supreme Court ruling not just to bolster its birthright citizenship proposal but also to push forward on other policies that have been blocked by judges on a nationwide basis. 'Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,' the president said. Steve Bannon urges Republicans to take Zohran Mamdani's rise 'seriously' By Kristen Welker Zohran Mamdani pulled off a stunning upset in New York City's mayoral primary this week, sending shock waves through the Democratic Party. A little-known state lawmaker, Mamdani ran a campaign that energized key Democratic constituencies and ultimately forced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to concede. And now, even Republicans are starting to pay attention. Steve Bannon, a close ally to President Donald Trump, told me the GOP should take Mamdani's rise seriously. 'He did something that AOC and Bernie haven't been able to do — he connected populism to affordability,' Bannon told me. 'Republicans better start taking this guy seriously and they better stop wishing that he wins, and they will automatically run against his policies in 2026. This guy is a very skilled politician. He's clearly had a lot of training. He's got radical ideas, but he presents them in a sunny upbeat way and people feel like he's fighting for them, particularly on an issue that Republicans haven't connected on yet: affordability.' Mamdani has the momentum at the moment, but if elected mayor this fall, he would face immediate questions about whether he and his fellow democratic socialists can effectively govern the nation's largest city. He would oversee a $115 billion budget, more than 300,000 city employees and the country's largest police force. Mamdani has pledged to expand affordable housing, make city buses free and lower the cost of living by raising taxes on large corporations and the top 1% of earners. But his record in Albany offers limited evidence of legislative success: The New York Times reported that only three relatively minor bills he sponsored became law. Delivering on his promises would be difficult. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul — who has said she's not ready to back Mamdani yet — already rejected his proposed tax hikes on the wealthy, and making public buses free would require state approval. So, if given the opportunity to govern, how would Mamdani do it, given these challenges? I'll talk to Mamdani about all of this in an exclusive interview on 'Meet the Press' this Sunday. 🎙️ Here's the Scoop This week, NBC News launched ' Here's the Scoop,' a new evening podcast that brings you a fresh take on the day's top stories in 15 minutes or less. In today's episode, host Yasmin Vossoughian discusses the Supreme Court's ruling in the birthright citizenship case with NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett and senior Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley. ✉️ Mailbag: Is Trump delivering on his deportation promises? Thanks to everyone who emailed us! This week's reader question is about Trump's mass deportation agenda. 'The president says they are deporting rapists, drug dealers and child molesters. I was wondering how many of the arrests are of real criminals and how many are just illegal entry workers?' To answer this, we turned to an exclusive report this week from our colleagues Julia Ainsley and Laura Strickler. They obtained internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data of every person booked from Oct. 1 through May 31, part of which was during the Biden administration. It shows a total of 185,042 people arrested and booked into ICE facilities during that time; 65,041 of them have been convicted of crimes. The most common categories of crimes they committed were immigration and traffic offenses. Last fall, ICE told Congress that 13,099 people convicted of homicide and 15,811 people convicted of sexual assault were on its non-detained docket, meaning it knew who they were but did not have them in custody. The new data shows that from Oct. 1 to May 31, ICE arrested 752 people convicted of homicide and 1,693 people convicted of sexual assault, meaning that at the most, the Trump administration has detained only 6% of the undocumented immigrants known to ICE to have been convicted of homicide and 11% of those known to ICE to have been convicted of sexual assault.
