Supreme Court limits universal injunctions in birthright citizenship case

The Supreme Court on Friday limited the use of nationwide injunctions, reining in federal judges' ability to issue sweeping orders that have in recent years stymied implementation of policies from Republican and Democratic presidential administrations alike.

In a widely anticipated decision stemming from President Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, the high court said that universal orders likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to the federal courts. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion for the 6-3 court, with the liberal justices in dissent.

The court granted the Trump administration request to narrow the reach of the injunctions blocking the president's executive order while proceedings move forward, but "only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief" to plaintiffs who can sue, Barrett wrote. The justices did not address the question of whether Mr. Trump's order is constitutional, and the administration has said agencies have 30 days to issue public guidance about implementation of the policy, allowing time for more challenges to be filed.

"Some say that the universal injunction 'give[s] the Judiciary a powerful tool to check the Executive Branch.' 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," Barrett wrote. "When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too."

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the majority of abdicating its role in protecting the rule of law. She read portions of her dissenting opinion from the bench.

"With the stroke of a pen, the president has made a 'solemn mockery' of our Constitution," she wrote. "Rather than stand firm, the court gives way."

At a White House news conference following the decision, Mr. Trump praised it as "a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law."

Universal injunctions and the birthright citizenship case

The court's ruling came in a trio of emergency appeals by the Trump administration arising out of the president's executive order seeking to end the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship, which means that everyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of their parents' immigration status. The Justice Department had asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of three separate injunctions that blocked implementation of Mr. Trump's policy nationwide while legal challenges brought by 22 states, immigrants' rights groups and seven individuals moved forward.

But instead of swiftly deciding whether to grant the Trump administration emergency relief, the Supreme Court held arguments on whether to restrict the use of nationwide, or universal, injunctions, which are judicial orders that prevent the government from enforcing a policy anywhere in the country and against anyone, including individuals who are not involved in the litigation before them. 

The dispute over the president's attempt to unwind birthright citizenship has become intertwined with the administration's battle against nationwide injunctions. These sweeping orders have frustrated both Democratic and Republican presidents seeking to implement their agendas among gridlock in Congress, and the fight over them has been simmering for several years.

The Congressional Research Service identified 86 nationwide injunctions that were issued during Mr. Trump's first term and 28 granted while former President Joe Biden was in office. In Mr. Trump's second term, the Congressional Research Service found 17 nationwide injunctions were issued during the first 100 days, though the Trump administration estimated last month there have been far more — at least 40 of these orders, and most coming from the same five judicial districts.

Some of the justices have suggested in past writings that the Supreme Court would have to clarify whether nationwide injunctions are allowed at all, and members on both ideological sides of the bench have been critical of them. The president and his allies have attacked judges for issuing nationwide injunctions in the slew of legal challenges to Mr. Trump's policies, and even called for some to be impeached.

The president's birthright citizenship order was one of the first that he signed on his first day back in office. While the 14th Amendment has for more than a century been understood to guarantee citizenship to all people born in the U.S., Mr. Trump's order denied birthright citizenship to children born to a mother who is unlawfully present in the U.S. or who is lawfully present on a temporary basis; or whose father is neither a citizen nor lawful permanent resident. The president directed federal agencies to stop issuing documents recognizing U.S. citizenship to children in those categories born after Feb. 19.

More than half-a-dozen lawsuits challenging the measure were filed before it took effect, and three federal district courts in Washington, Maryland and Massachusetts each blocked the government from implementing the order. Federal appeals courts in California, Massachusetts and Virginia then refused requests by the Trump administration to partly block the lower court orders.

The Justice Department filed emergency appeals of the three decisions with the Supreme Court in mid-March and asked it to limit enforcement of the birthright citizenship order to 28 states and individuals who are not involved in the cases. The administration said the Supreme Court should, at a minimum, allow agencies to develop and issue public guidance while proceedings continue, and took aim at the breadth of the injunctions issued by the district courts. Government lawyers said in a filing that universal injunctions have reached "epidemic" proportions since Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January.

"Those injunctions thwart the executive branch's crucial policies on matters ranging from border security, to international relations, to national security, to military readiness," Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. "They repeatedly disrupt the operations of the Executive Branch up to the Cabinet level."

But the plaintiffs in the cases urged the Supreme Court to leave the district court orders in place. In a filing of their own, officials from 18 states, the District of Columbia and San Francisco called the Trump administration's request "remarkable," since it would allow the government to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship while the legal challenges move forward and render them "deportable on birth and at risk of statelessness."

The states argued that the Trump administration seeks to violate binding Supreme Court precedent that recognized birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

The court's decision

Writing for the majority, Barrett looked to the nation's history and said that nationwide injunctions were "conspicuously nonexistent" in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. If federal courts had such a tool, she said, "surely they would not have let it lay idle."

"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," she wrote.

In her dissent, Sotomayor warned that the Supreme Court's new regime puts all manner of constitutional rights at risk and renders them "meaningful in name only" for people who are not parties to a lawsuit.

"Today, the threat is birthright citizenship," she wrote. "Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship."

Sotomayor accused the court's conservative majority of ignoring whether Mr. Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship is constitutional and said its "patent unlawfulness" underscores why universal injunctions are appropriate remedies.

While the high court agreed to grant Mr. Trump's request for a partial stay of the injunctions, Barrett wrote that there are still issues for the lower courts to decide, including whether narrower relief is appropriate.

The Supreme Court's decision still allows plaintiffs challenging a policy to file class-action lawsuits and seek certification of a nationwide class. In her dissent, Sotomayor urged individuals who may be impacted by Mr. Trump's birthright citizenship plan, as well as lower courts, to move swiftly.

"[T]he parents of children covered by the Citizenship Order would be well advised to file promptly class-action suits and to request temporary injunctive relief for the putative class pending class certification," she wrote. "For suits challenging policies as blatantly unlawful and harmful as the Citizenship Order, moreover, lower courts would be wise to act swiftly on such requests for relief and to adjudicate the cases as quickly as they can so as to enable this Court's prompt review."

On the heels of the Supreme Court's decision, CASA, one of the groups that challenged the order, asked the federal district court to allow its lawsuit to proceed on a classwide basis and certify as a class "all children who have been born or will be born in the United States on or after February 19, 2025, who are designated by Executive Order 14,160 to be ineligible for birthright citizenship, and their parents."