The US Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines on Friday sided with the Trump administration’s request to limit universal injunctions issued by federal courts.
The opinion in the birthright citizenship case was highly anticipated.
“Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts,” the conservative majority said.
“The Court grants the Government’s applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered 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 outcome was a victory for the Republican president, who has complained about individual judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda.
At issue was how the lower courts should handle President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship.
On his first day in office this year, Trump issued an executive order declaring that the children of parents who enter the U.S. illegally or on a temporary visa are not entitled to automatic citizenship.
Trump’s order would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally.
Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally.
The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
In a notable US Supreme Court decision from 1898, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the court held that the only children who did not automatically receive U.S. citizenship upon being born on U.S. soil were the children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.
The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.
Trump and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen, which he called “a priceless and profound gift” in the executive order he signed on his first day in office.
The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, a phrase used in the amendment, and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.
But states, immigrants and rights groups that have sued to block the executive order have accused the administration of trying to unsettle the broader understanding of birthright citizenship that has been accepted since the amendment’s adoption.
Judges have uniformly ruled against the administration.
The Justice Department had argued that individual judges lack the power to give nationwide effect to their rulings.
The Trump administration instead wanted the justices to allow Trump’s plan to go into effect for everyone except the handful of people and groups that sued.
Failing that, the administration argued that the plan could remain blocked for now in the 22 states that sued.
New Hampshire is covered by a separate order that is not at issue in this case decided by the US Supreme Court .
As a further fallback, the administration asked “at a minimum” to be allowed to make public announcements about how it plans to carry out the policy if it eventually is allowed to take effect.
Immigrant rights groups and 22 states sued, and three different federal district court judges invalidated Trump’s order, issuing what are called universal injunctions barring the administration from enforcing the Trump policy anywhere in the country.
When the courts of appeal refused to intervene while the litigation proceeded, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block universal injunctions altogether.
