Latest news with #nationwideInjunctions
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court Rules 6–3 for Trump, Limits 'Nationwide Injunctions' in Birthright Citizenship Case
The Trump administration scored a notable legal victory today when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that federal district judges "likely exceed" their authority when they issue nationwide injunctions that entirely block federal laws or presidential orders from going into effect while legal challenges play out in court. The case, Trump v. CASA, arose from several lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump's executive order purporting to abolish birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and temporary legal visitors, such as people holding work visas. The federal district judges in those cases had issued nationwide injunctions against Trump's order. "But federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them," declared the majority opinion of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. "When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully," Barrett wrote, "the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too." Writing in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, faulted the majority for worrying more about overreaching judges than about an overreaching president. "The majority ignores entirely whether the President's Executive Order is constitutional, instead focusing only on the question of whether federal courts have the equitable authority to issue universal injunctions," Sotomayor wrote. "Yet the Order's patent unlawfulness reveals the gravity of the majority's error and underscores why equity supports universal injunctions as appropriate remedies in this kind of case. As every conceivable source of law confirms, birthright citizenship is the law of the land." Barrett's ruling took no position on the lawfulness of Trump's executive order. Nor did it weigh in on the soundness of the district court rulings which found that Trump's order had harmed the individual plaintiffs who filed the cases. In other words, the underlying constitutional dispute about whether or not Trump's order violates the 14th Amendment was not revolved today. As Barrett put it, "the birthright citizenship issue is not before us." What Barrett's ruling did do was to order the lower courts to make sure that their injunctions are not "broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue." So, if a pregnant woman successfully sues Trump over his executive order, the district court may still block Trump from denying birthright citizenship to her newborn. But, with nationwide injunctions now off the table, a different mother will now have to file a different lawsuit of her own to obtain the exact same relief for her newborn. Under this scenario, the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship will extend to some newborns but not to others, all depending on whether or not the parents were part of a lawsuit. At the same time, Barrett's ruling did leave open the availability of class-action lawsuits against Trump's executive order. In fact, whether she meant to or not, Barrett effectively invited such suits by referring to nationwide injunctions as a "class-action workaround." In other words, if a class-action lawsuit can achieve similar results to the now-verboten nationwide injunction, we should probably expect a slew of class-actions to be filed immediately against Trump's executive order. And we should also probably expect those class-actions to similarly block Trump's order from going into wide effect while those suits play out. One reason to think that this result will happen is because Justice Samuel Alito wrote a separate concurrence today in which he fretted about what he called the class-action "loophole." According to Alito, "the universal injunction will return from the grave under the guise of 'nationwide class relief,' and today's decision will be of little more than academic interest" if class-action suits are allowed to proliferate against Trump's executive order. In short, the fight over nationwide injunctions may be over for now, but the fight over class-action lawsuits against presidential orders is about to heat up. The post Supreme Court Rules 6–3 for Trump, Limits 'Nationwide Injunctions' in Birthright Citizenship Case appeared first on
Fox News
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Barrett eviscerates Jackson, Sotomayor takes on a 'complicit' court in contentious final opinions
Print Close By Ashley Oliver Published June 27, 2025 Justice Amy Coney Barrett had pointed words for her colleague Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, accusing Jackson of taking an "extreme" position on the role of the judiciary branch. Writing in her Supreme Court opinion on nationwide injunctions on Friday, Barrett said Jackson's dissent contained "rhetoric," and she signaled that the liberal justice's arguments were not worth much attention. "We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself," Barrett wrote. "We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary." The Supreme Court's decision came as part of an emergency request from the Trump administration asking the high court to put an end to judges issuing universal injunctions, including those that judges have placed on President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship order. TRUMP CELEBRATES SUPREME COURT LIMITS ON 'COLOSSAL ABUSE OF POWER' BY FEDERAL JUDGES Barrett, who was appointed by Trump, wrote that when judges issue injunctions to block policies, like those the Trump administration is trying to implement, they cannot apply the injunction to more than the parties involved in the case. Barrett said that type of order, often called a "nationwide injunction," is judicial overreach. But Barrett's opinion left open numerous other ways that plaintiffs can seek broad forms of relief from the courts, including by bringing class action lawsuits or statewide lawsuits. SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS REINS IN SOTOMAYOR AFTER REPEATED INTERRUPTIONS Jackson wrote that nationwide injunctions should be permissible because the courts should not allow the president to "violate the Constitution." Barrett said that was not based on any existing legal doctrine. "She offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush," Barrett wrote. Sotomayor, meanwhile, wrote in her own dissenting opinion that the Supreme Court was being "complicit" by allowing the Trump administration to extract a perceived win out of the high court over birthright citizenship. SUPREME COURT TAKES ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP: LIBERALS BALK AT TRUMP ARGUMENT TO END NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS Sotomayor said that every court that has reviewed Trump's birthright citizenship plan thus far has blocked Trump from carrying it out. Trump played a "different game," Sotomayor said, by bringing the case before the Supreme Court without actually asking the justices to analyze the merits of his plan. Trump instead asked the justices to weigh in on the legality of nationwide injunctions in general. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Trump's birthright citizenship order would eliminate the 150-year-old right under the 14th Amendment that allows babies born in the United States to receive automatic citizenship regardless of their parents' citizenship status. The Supreme Court's decision still allows for the high possibility that judges will continue to widely block Trump's birthright citizenship order, but with different legal maneuvering on the part of the plaintiffs and the courts. Print Close URL
