Supreme Court Rules For Trump In “Birthright Citizenship” Case

Supreme Court Rules For Trump In “Birthright Citizenship” Case

The Supreme Court has issued its Opinion in what is being called the “Birthright Citizen” case, ruling that universal injunctions were likely unauthorized while avoiding the merits of whether birthright citizenship was required under the 14th Amendment.

As I discussed before, it probably was better called the “Nationwide Injunction” case because that’s what most of the oral argument was about – in the context of a District Court judge issuing a nationwide injunction against Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Trump’s Executive Order instructing federal departments not to recognize birthright citizenship:

Sec. 2.  Policy.  (a)  It is the policy of the United States that no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons:  (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

(b)  Subsection (a) of this section shall apply only to persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order.

(c)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to affect the entitlement of other individuals, including children of lawful permanent residents, to obtain documentation of their United States citizenship.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in an Opinion written by Justice Barrett focused on the universal injunction aspect:

The United States has filed three emergency applications challenging the scope of a federal court’s authority to enjoin Government officials from enforcing an executive order. Traditionally, courts issued injunctions prohibiting executive officials from enforcing a challenged law or policy only against the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The injunctions before us today reflect a more recent development: district courts asserting the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone. These injunctions—known as “universal injunctions”—likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.1 We therefore grant the Government’s applications to partially stay the injunctions entered below….

The Government has now filed three nearly identical applications seeking to partially stay the universal preliminary injunctions and limit them to the parties. See Application for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A884; Application for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A885; Application for Partial Stay of Injunction in No. 24A886.3 The applications do not raise—and thus we do not address—the question whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act. The issue before us is one of remedy: whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.

The Supreme Court handed the trump administration what it really wanted – a restriction on district courts issuing universal injunctions. Those type of injunctions, which allow a single federal district court judge to impose a ruling on the entire nation, have plagued both the first and second Trump administrations. The ‘birthright citizenship’ executive order was just a means of getting the case to the Supreme Court, and the Trump administration did not even seek a substantive ruling. This case will have wide-reaching implications for the lawfare attacks on Trump policies, and will help Trump implement his agenda.

MORE TO FOLLOW

Three was some sniping between Barrett and Sotomayor. From Barrett’s opinion:

8The principal dissent faults us for failing to identify a single foundingera case in which this Court held that universal injunctions exceed a federal court’s equitable authority. See post, at 29 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). But this absence only bolsters our case. That this Court had no occasion to reject the universal injunction as inconsistent with traditional equity practice merely demonstrates that no party even bothered to ask for such a sweeping remedy—because no court would have entertained the request. Cf. Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 332 (“[E]quitable powers conferred by the Judiciary Act of 1789 did not include the power to create remedies previously unknown to equity jurisprudence”).

Barrett reserved her primary ire for Justice Jackson, practically calling her ignorant:

Rhetoric aside, JUSTICE JACKSON’s position is difficult to pin down. She might be arguing that universal injunctions are appropriate—even required—whenever the defendant is part of the Executive Branch. See, e.g., post, at 3, 10–12, 16–18. If so, her position goes far beyond the mainstream defense of universal injunctions. See, e.g., Frost, 93 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 1069 (“Nationwide injunctions come with significant costs and should never be the default remedy in cases challenging federal executive action”). As best we can tell, though, her argument is more extreme still, because its logic does not depend on the entry of a universal injunction: JUSTICE JACKSON appears to believe that the reasoning behind any court order demands “universal adherence,” at least where the Executive is concerned. Post, at 2 (dissenting opinion). In her law-declaring vision of the judicial function, a district court’s opinion is not just persuasive, but has the legal force of a judgment. But see Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255, 294 (2023) (“It is a federal court’s judgment, not its opinion, that remedies an injury”). Once a single district court deems executive conduct unlawful, it has stated what the law requires. And the Executive must conform to that view, ceasing its enforcement of the law against anyone, anywhere.17 23

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. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary. [Emphasis added]

We can expect more district court ligitation, as SCOTUS said the district courts should fashion narrower remedies, with specifying what those remedies should be:

The lower courts should determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate; we therefore leave it to them to consider these and any related arguments….

The upshot: As with most disputed issues, there are arguments on both sides. But as with most questions of law, the policy pros and cons are beside the point. Under our well-established precedent, the equitable relief available in the federal courts is that “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at the time of our founding. Grupo Mexicano, 527 U. S., at 319. Nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter. Thus, under the Judiciary Act, federal courts lack authority to issue them….

The Government’s applications to partially stay the preliminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue. The lower courts shall move expeditiously to ensure that, with respect to each plaintiff, the injunctions comport with this rule and otherwise comply with principles of equity. The injunctions are also stayed to the extent that they prohibit executive agencies from developing and issuing public guidance about the Executive’s plans to implement the Executive Order. Consistent with the Solicitor General’s representation, §2 of the Executive Order shall not take effect until 30 days after the date of this opinion. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 55.

Justice Thomas in his concurring opinion, joined by Gorsuch, recognized that the district courts will probably try to get around the ruling:

I write separately to emphasize the majority’s guidance regarding how courts should tailor remedies specific to the parties. Courts must not distort “the rule that injunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979). Otherwise, they risk replicating the problems of universal injunctions under the guise of granting complete relief….

For good reason, the Court today puts an end to the “increasingly common” practice of federal courts issuing universal injunctions. Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 713 (THOMAS, J., concurring). The Court also makes clear that the completerelief principle provides a ceiling on federal courts’ authority, which must be applied alongside other “principles of equity” and our holding that universal injunctions are impermissible. Ante, at 26. Lower courts should carefully heed this Court’s guidance and cabin their grants of injunctive relief in light of historical equitable limits. If they cannot do so, this Court will continue to be “dutybound” to intervene. Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 721 (THOMAS, J., concurring).

Justice Alito, joined by Thomas, sounded a similar warning:

Putting the kibosh on universal injunctions does nothing to disrupt Rule 23’s requirements. Of course, Rule 23 may permit the certification of nationwide classes in some discrete scenarios. But district courts should not view today’s decision as an invitation to certify nationwide classes without scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23. Otherwise, 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 minor academic interest.

Lax enforcement of the requirements for third-party standing and class certification would create a potentially significant loophole to today’s decision. Federal courts should thus be vigilant against such potential abuses of these tools. I do not understand the Court’s decision to reflect any disagreement with these concerns, so I join its decision in full.

Sotomayor viewed this as an end run around ruling on the birthright citizenship merits (and she’s right!):

Children born in the United States and subject to its laws are United States citizens. That has been the legal rule since the founding, and it was the English rule well before then. This Court once attempted to repudiate it, holding in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), that the children of enslaved black Americans were not citizens. To remedy that grievous error, the States passed in 1866 and Congress ratified in 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which enshrined birthright citizenship in the Constitution. There it has remained, accepted and respected by Congress, by the Executive, and by this Court. Until today.

It is now the President who attempts, in an Executive Order (Order or Citizenship Order), to repudiate birthright citizenship. Every court to evaluate the Order has deemed it patently unconstitutional and, for that reason, has enjoined the Federal Government from enforcing it. Undeterred, the Government now asks this Court to grant emergency relief, insisting it will suffer irreparable harm unless it can deprive at least some children born in the United States of citizenship. See Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, Exec. Order No. 14160, 90 Fed. Reg. 8849 (2025). The Government does not ask for complete stays of the injunctions, as it ordinarily does before this Court. Why? The answer is obvious: To get such relief, the Government would have to show that the Order is likely constitutional, an impossible task in light of the Constitution’s text, history, this Court’s precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch practice. So the Government instead tries its hand at a different game. It asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone. Instead, the Government says, it should be able to apply the Citizenship Order (whose legality it does not defend) to everyone except the plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit.

The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along. A majority of this Court decides that these applications, of all cases, provide the appropriate occasion to resolve the question of universal injunctions and end the centuries-old practice once and for all. In its rush to do so the Court disregards basic principles of equity as well as the long history of injunctive relief granted to nonparties.

Justice Jackson – the sky is falling!

I agree with every word of JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR’s dissent. I write separately to emphasize a key conceptual point: The Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law. It is important to recognize that the Executive’s bid to vanquish so-called “universal injunctions” is, at bottom, a request for this Court’s permission to engage in unlawful behavior. When the Government says “do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,” what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution— please allow this. That is some solicitation.

With its ruling today, the majority largely grants the Government’s wish. But, in my view, if this country is going to persist as a Nation of laws and not men, the Judiciary has no choice but to deny it.

Thanks to our B-2 pilots the closest our country got to nuclear war this week was Amy Coney Barrett absolutely NUKING Ketanji Brown Jackson in her opinion pic.twitter.com/1rMfH8RfMy

— Arynne Wexler (@ArynneWexler) June 27, 2025

A huge rulling by the Supreme Court, smacking down the ridiculous process of nationwide injunctions. Under our system, everyone has to follow the law–including judges! pic.twitter.com/S3Os7RpV6F

— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 27, 2025

The FACT that six Justices were OK with signing onto an opinion where Justice Barrett took a personal shot at Justice Jackson is a VERY STRONG indication that Jackson has alienated her colleagues and there is a growing lack of respect for her work.

Justices circulate Memos…

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) June 27, 2025

This line from Barrett:

"JUSTICE JACKSON, however, chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever."

My gosh, Amy. That poor lady has a family! https://t.co/iQGjoVOeta

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) June 27, 2025

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