Supreme Court limits federal courts on 'universal injunctions'

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court curtailed the power of district courts to issue “universal injunctions” in a decision Friday in the legal clash over the Trump administration’s push end birthright citizenship.

The 6-3 decision found that most of those those broad orders that stop government actions — and there have been dozens issued against the Trump administration this year — exceed the power Congress gave to federal district courts.

The decision sends litigation over the legality of President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship effort back to the lower court and is likely to set off an avalanche of litigation in more than 100 lawsuits against Trump’s administrative actions.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, argued that courts did not have the historical power to issue orders that bind the government nationwide. “When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” Barrett wrote.

Barrett differentiated between complete relief for parties before the court and universal relief. She wrote that the question “is not whether an injunction offers complete relief to everyone potentially affected by an allegedly unlawful act; it is whether an injunction will offer complete relief to the plaintiffs before the court.”

“Here, prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship,” Barrett wrote. “Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete.”

The executive order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term as part of a tough-on-immigration approach, sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents were not current citizens or permanent residents.

Federal judges appointed by presidents of both parties soon blocked the administration from taking action under that order, finding that it likely violated federal law and the Constitution.

The Supreme Court’s decision sends the issue back to district courts that issued nationwide injunctions, which now must limit those only to what will “provide complete relief to each plaintiff” who has a legal right to challenge the policy.

The decision also allows the Trump administration to start developing and issuing public guidance about plans to implement the anti-birthright citizenship executive order. That order cannot take effect for 30 days.

Barrett wrote that challengers to federal policies may still be able to get broader orders against the government through class action litigation. And she also wrote that several other questions, such as what to do about states’ claimed harms from the anti-birthright citizenship policy, would need to be addressed by lower courts.

The birthright citizenship case has become a microcosm of the broader struggles over executive power and checks on the presidency in Trump’s second term. Trump campaigned on ending birthright citizenship and issued an executive order on Jan. 20 to end it for the children of undocumented immigrants and those in the country with temporary legal status.

Birthright citizenship comes from the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that everyone born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is considered a citizen.

Experts said that prior to the second Trump administration, only some people such as the children of ambassadors or of invading soldiers would be considered noncitizens.

Trump’s order would have directed federal offices to deny Social Security numbers, passports and other citizenship documents to any child where at least one parent was not a citizen or legal permanent resident.

Trump and his allies soon used those court fights and others to fuel broad efforts to fight back against the judiciary, calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against him and publicly contemplating ignoring judicial orders.

Republicans in Congress have also responded, advancing a bill to restrict the power of individual judges to issue nationwide injunctions and introducing articles of impeachment against judges who ruled against the administration.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, in a statement praised Friday’s decision as a “significant step” toward addressing bipartisan concerns with universal injunctions and argued that Congress should pass his bill that would affirmatively prohibit nationwide injunctions.

“I’m heartened to hear a supermajority of the Supreme Court echo what I’ve said repeatedly: judges’ constitutional authority is limited to deciding cases and controversies,” Grassley said. “Universal injunctions are an unconstitutional afront to our nation’s system of checks and balances, and ought to be stopped for good.”

The case reached the Supreme Court last month, where the justices heard Trump’s emergency request to overturn nationwide injunctions from three lower courts in cases brought by families, nonprofit groups and two coalitions of states.

‘No right is safe’

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the court “shamefully” went along with the Trump administration’s effort to undermine a constitutional right.

Sotomayor wrote that the decision made it more difficult for citizens to defend their rights in court.

“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,” Sotomayor wrote. “Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the members of two coalitions of states, in a statement called the ruling a “profound and disappointing setback” for families nationwide. James said she and the other state attorneys general who challenged the executive order would continue their cases against the Trump administration.

“Every child born on U.S. soil is a citizen of this country, no matter which state they are born in. This has been the law of the land for more than a century,” James said.

The cases are Trump v. CASA Inc.; Trump v. Washington; and Trump v. New Jersey.