Mexico's ruling party headed toward control of newly elected Supreme Court, vote tallies show
MEXICO CITY — Mexico's ruling Morena party appeared to be heading toward control over the Supreme Court, preliminary vote tallies of the country's first judicial election indicated.
While votes were still being counted for the majority of the 2,600 federal, state and local judge positions up for grabs in Sunday's judicial elections, results rolled in for the nine Supreme Court positions.
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Trump's birthright citizenship order lands in Seattle appeals court
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, center, speaks to reporters alongside Solicitor General Noah Purcell, left, and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project Legal Director Matt Adams, right, outside a Seattle courthouse where federal appeals court judges heard arguments over President Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. (Photo by Jake Goldstein-Street/Washington State Standard) SEATTLE — Federal appeals court judges in Seattle on Wednesday questioned a Trump administration lawyer and Washington's solicitor general over the president's executive order restricting birthright citizenship. The three-judge panel in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared more open to the Trump administration's arguments than a federal judge in Seattle who in January called the order 'blatantly unconstitutional.' Perhaps the most pointed question came after a lengthy back-and-forth over what the writers of the 14th Amendment meant when they enshrined birthright citizenship into the U.S. Constitution. Hawkins asked Department of Justice attorney Eric McArthur, who clerked for conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, what the late Justice Antonin Scalia would think of his arguments. Scalia, an ardent originalist, anchored the Supreme Court's conservative wing alongside Thomas. 'He was widely critical of looking at congressional history and statements of senators opposing or supporting a particular thing, and famously said 'just the words,'' said Hawkins, a Clinton appointee. McArthur said he thought Scalia would have been 'very open to looking at all of the historic evidence.' After McCarthur's arguments, Hawkins told the Justice Department attorney he did a 'terrific job.' Trump's executive action, signed on the first day of his second term, aims to end birthright citizenship for babies born to a mother and father who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. Since the aftermath of the Civil War, the country has automatically given citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil, no matter their immigration status. Wednesday was the first time the merits of Trump's order have come before a federal appeals court. The arguments from Washington's solicitor general, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and McArthur come a few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court took up Washington's case on birthright citizenship and others. The justices focused on whether preliminary injunctions, like the one from Judge John Coughenor in Seattle at the center of Wednesday's hearing, should affect only the parties involved in a particular case or can be applied nationwide. The Trump administration contends such orders are judicial overreach. The Supreme Court's ruling-to-come could have implications far beyond the birthright citizenship case, potentially staunching the flow of temporary nationwide blocks that state attorneys general are relying on to stop what they see as the president's unlawful actions. In their May 15 hearing, the justices appeared wary of allowing different rules by state. On Wednesday, state Solicitor General Noah Purcell called Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship 'unconstitutional and unAmerican.' 'President Trump seeks to turn citizenship into a political football, denying that precious right to hundreds of thousands of babies born in this country simply because their parents are here to work, to study or to escape persecution or violence,' said Purcell, who argued successfully against the president's travel ban in court in 2017. As is customary, the 9th Circuit judges didn't rule from the bench Wednesday. They'll issue a written ruling in the coming weeks or months. Both sides told the judges it may be prudent to first wait for the Supreme Court to weigh in on the nationwide injunction question. Former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, appointed two of the three judges who oversaw Wednesday's hearing. The other is a Trump appointee from the president's first term. Several other cases are currently awaiting similar appellate hearings after lower courts awarded preliminary injunctions. The Supreme Court will likely have the final say on the merits of Trump's order. Speaking to reporters after the Wednesday morning hearing, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said 'the judges had a lot of pointed and difficult questions for both sides to grapple with.' Still, he said he is 'really confident moving forward that this court, and ultimately the Supreme Court, will rule in the states' favors.' The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution codified birthright citizenship in 1868. The amendment begins: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' Trump's order, initially set to take effect Feb. 19, focused on the 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' phrase. 'The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,' Trump's executive order reads. 'The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'' Legal precedent, including an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, has long upheld birthright citizenship. That case dealt with a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents named Wong King Ark. The justices ruled he was a U.S. citizen. The two sides interpret this case differently. Much of Wednesday's arguments centered the Wong Kim Ark decision. McArthur noted the Supreme Court ruled 'every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.' He focuses on the word 'domiciled,' arguing those here temporarily or without legal status don't fall under that umbrella. Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, countered by reading further from the Supreme Court decision. 'His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory,' the justices continued in their Wong Kim Ark ruling, arguing that he is 'as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen.' Washington's case against Trump's birthright citizenship order, filed alongside Oregon, Arizona and Illinois, led to the second Trump administration's first judicial rebuke. The Reagan-appointed judge, Coughenour, later agreed to indefinitely block Trump's order while the case played out in court. Trump's Department of Justice appealed, leading to Wednesday's hearing. Two pregnant noncitizen women joined the states' litigation, fearful their children could be born stateless. One has since given birth to a baby born a U.S. citizen because of court action, said Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. In 2022, about 153,000 babies across the country were born to two parents without legal immigration status, including 4,000 in Washington, according to the plaintiffs. The states have said they stand to lose federal funding through programs like Medicaid that otherwise could help these children if they were citizens. Purcell told the judges that implementing the Trump administration's vision would be difficult, leaving hospitals to ask about immigration status and how long parents plan to remain in the United States. 'Doesn't that just show the injunction is premature?' asked Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee. 'We don't know how unworkable it is because they were not given a chance to implement it.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mexican Supreme Court remake: Ruling-party loyalists dominate the new bench
Judicial candidates closely linked to Mexico's ruling party have swept every position on the nation's newly transformed Supreme Court, according to final results released Wednesday from the controversial judicial vote. The nine incoming justices on the high court have strong ties to the dominant Morena bloc headed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, and their election signals a radical shift in Mexico's balance of power. Among them is a new chief justice, Hugo Aguilar, who would become the country's first top jurist of Indigenous origin since the legendary Benito Juárez, who also served as president, more than a century and a half ago. Electoral regulators still must validate the vote, though that is viewed as a formality. The Supreme Court justices, along with almost 900 other newly elected federal jurists, are scheduled to take office Sept. 1. Mexican authorities have been tallying the results from Sunday's controversial national balloting — championed by Morena — in which only 13% of eligible voters went to the polls. Despite the paltry turnout, Sheinbaum has lauded the election as "marvelous" and "a great success." She has hailed the replacement of the entire federal judiciary as a victory of democracy over corruption and nepotism. Read more: Sheinbaum calls Mexico's judicial election 'extraordinary' despite turnout of less than 13% The president has been especially effusive about the likely emergence of a chief justice from one of Mexico's long-marginalized Indigenous communities. "It's a profound change," she said. Indigenous Mexicans, comprising about 10% of the population, have long been among the country's poorest residents and are often subject to racism. Some detractors have mocked the desire of Aguilar to don Indigenous dress instead of the traditional black robes. Sheinbaum said she supports his effort to honor his cultural roots. Mexico has became the first country worldwide to elect all of its judges, from Supreme Court justices down to thousands of local magistrates. Many independent observers have assailed the exercise as a triumph of politics over justice — and a potentially fatal blow for the separation of powers, a crucial pillar of democratic rule. "This is a setback for democracy in Mexico," said Stephanie Brewer, who heads the Mexico analysis section of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights research group. "When you have concentration of power over all three branches of government, you start to erode democratic rule." Sheinbaum's Morena party already has super-majorities in the Mexican Congress and dominates many state and local governments. Coparmex, a Mexican business group, said it had detected "multiple irregularities" in the vote and declared that the new judiciary could hamper investment in Mexico, the United States' leading trading partner. "Without independent justice, there is no sustainable investment," Coparmex said in a statement. "Mexico cannot aspire to progress without legality." Read more: Mexico judicial elections: Government calls it essential reform. Critics say it's a farce The revamped Supreme Court will have nine judges, compared to 11 in the current high court. The Supreme Court will also have reduced ability to challenge congressional and presidential actions. Sheinbaum has dismissed much of the the criticism of the election as "classism and racism," and has celebrated the rise of Aguilar, the apparent chief justice-elect, who hails from the Mixtec ethnic group in southern Oaxaca state. She accused opponents of fomenting "hate." Aguilar, who currently oversees human rights affairs for the government's National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, garnered 6 million votes, more than any other Supreme Court contender, results showed. Second highest in Supreme Court balloting was Lenia Batres Guardarrama, 5.7 million votes. From humble origins, Aguilar has said that a desire to defend Indigenous rights inspired him to study law. He has been widely praised for his legal acumen and dedication to the poor. "Hugo seems to be a brilliant lawyer," said Joaquín Galván, a human rights attorney in Oaxaca state. "But I would advise against idealizing him like he is the new Benito Juárez, or to say that—just because he is Indigenous—he cannot be criticized." Some critics have also accused Aguilar of selling out to win Indigenous support for controversial development projects promoted by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, notably the $25-billion Maya Train, which some Indigenous groups resisted as destructive of the environment and of native communities. "Without doubt Aguilar has been a promoter and defender of the government of Morena," Galván said. Among the other candidates leading in the voting for seats on the Supreme Court are three sitting justices appointed by López Obrador, who founded Morena, and was Sheinbaum's mentor. Those three are: Batres, Yasim Esquivel and Loretta Ortiz. By law, the new court will be composed of five women and four men. For years, López Obrador battled with the country's Supreme Court about a number of contentious issues, notably his plan to overhaul the nation's electoral system. Nearing the end of his six-year term, he championed the controversial reform that led to Sunday's judicial overhaul. Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
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Attorneys have had no contact with migrants held at military base in Djibouti, groups tell Supreme Court
A group of migrants that the Trump's administration has been holding on a military base in Djibouti have been unable to contact their attorneys, immigrant rights groups told the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The detainees, who were initially bound for South Sudan, are part of a high-profile emergency appeal pending at the Supreme Court over the administration's effort to remove migrants to places other than their homeland. Lower courts have required officials to provide those migrants additional notice and an opportunity to claim a fear of being tortured. Groups representing the migrants, including the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said in a new brief that officials had 'set up a private interview room' on the base but that 'to date, counsel have not heard from them.' The migrants, the groups said, 'are stranded incommunicado in Djibouti, a country of which they have no knowledge, and en route to another country, South Sudan, where none have ever set foot and which remains engulfed in ongoing and intensifying armed conflict.' The Supreme Court has repeatedly sided with Trump amid a flurry of emergency cases that have reached its docket since the president returned to power. One issue on which the White House has not fared as well has been immigration, particularly in situations where due process concerns have been raised. The high court notably barred the administration last month from deporting other migrants under the 1789 Alien Enemies Act without more notice and a chance to have their cases reviewed. After a group of migrants facing deportation to countries other than their homeland sued over the administration's process, US District Judge Brian Murphy, a Joe Biden appointee, in March blocked officials from carrying out those removals without offering written notice and giving the targeted immigrants a chance to demonstrate they have a credible fear of persecution or torture in that other country. Murphy later said that the Trump administration 'unquestionably' violated his court order when it tried to transfer detainees to South Sudan. The Trump administration has argued Murphy's requirements are not included in federal law, and DHS officials have claimed they already have procedures in place to ensure that migrants are not persecuted in a third country. They have also described the migrants facing removal to South Sudan as having deep criminal records. But the attorneys representing the migrants at the Supreme Court pushed back on that assertion. The administration, they told the justices in their filing Wednesday, 'blatantly ignore the fact that many, if not the majority, of the class members in this case, including two of the named plaintiffs, have no criminal convictions whatsoever.' CNN's Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
