The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, sided on Friday (27) with the Trump administration’s request to limit universal injunctions issued by federal courts. The opinion in the birthright citizenship case was highly anticipated.
The issue was how lower courts should handle President Trump’s executive order, which declared that children of parents who enter the U.S. illegally or on temporary visas do not have automatic citizenship rights.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not rule on whether President Trump’s executive order violates the 14th Amendment or the Nationality Act. Instead, it focused on whether federal courts have the power to issue nationwide blocks.
“Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress granted to federal courts,” the conservative majority stated. “The Court grants the Government’s requests to partially stay the injunctions below, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.”
The opinion asked lower courts to reconsider their blanket decisions in light of the Supreme Court opinion and, otherwise, “with principles of equity.” However, the opinion also stated that Trump’s birthright citizenship order cannot take effect for 30 days from Friday’s opinion, giving more time for legal challenges.
The three liberal justices dissented from the decision. Writing on behalf of the three, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the government’s rush to limit injunctions nationwide “disregards basic principles of equity, as well as the long history of injunctions granted to nonparties.”
Immigrant rights groups and 22 states filed lawsuits against Trump’s birthright citizenship order, and three federal district court judges invalidated Trump’s order, issuing what are called universal injunctions, preventing the government from enforcing Trump’s policy anywhere in the country.
When appellate courts refused to intervene while the litigation proceeded, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to fully block the universal injunctions.
Although the decision is procedural, the core issue of the case is Trump’s long-held view that there is no automatic citizenship for people born in the U.S. On his first day in office this year, he signed an executive order declaring that babies born in the U.S. may not be citizens if their parents are not here legally or if the parents are here legally but on a temporary basis, such as a work visa. Trump’s view, however, is directly contradicted by a 127-year-old Supreme Court decision — a decision that has never been overturned and is based on the text of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” It was enacted in 1866, after the Civil War, and aimed to reverse the infamous Supreme Court Dred Scott decision, which had declared that Black people, enslaved or free, could not be citizens. It has always been applied to anyone born in the U.S.
President Trump responded to the decision, calling it a “huge victory.” He suggested that immigrants were trying to game the process of obtaining American citizenship and that the 14th Amendment was intended only to grant citizenship to “children of slaves.”
Source: npr.org by Nina Totenberg