The 6-3 decision said federal district judges lack the judicial authority from Congress to grant national injunctions beyond their districts and the plaintiffs who are directly affected.
“These injunctions—known as ‘universal injunctions’—likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts," Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion. "We therefore grant the Government’s applications to partially stay the injunctions entered below.”
The case, Trump v. CASA, was centered around President Trump’s executive order that bans birthright citizenship. He signed that order Jan. 20, the first day of his four-year term, to end the practice of babies gaining automatic citizenship if their parents are here illegally but the birth happens on U.S. soil.
Critics of the executive order argue it conflicts with the 14th Amendment. That amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1868 to address the issue of blacks who had been brought to the country as slaves.
In a social media post, Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the ruling. "Today, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to STOP the endless barrage of nationwide injunctions against President Trump,” she wrote.
On the other side, Democrat strategist Symone Sanders’ desk-slamming meltdown on MSNBC typified the Far Left’s reaction to the Trump v. CASA, likely because liberal plaintiffs have used the courts and compliant judges as a political tool to fight Trump’s agenda.
In an X post, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz called the ruling a "vile betrayal to our Constitution."
"In limiting nationwide injunctions, SCOTUS has — once again — prioritized loyalty to Trump over defense of the Constitution. Deplorable,” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) also wrote on X.
Art Arthur is a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. He tells AFN the 6-3 ruling in Trump v Casa marks a “big victory” for the Trump administration. That's because it put an end to a judge determining national policy with a ruling.
Arthur adds, however, the high court punted when it came to Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. Instead, he explains, the justices ordered the lower courts to work through the legal arguments with the expectation the issue will eventually come back to the Supreme Court.
“All that the Supreme Court did,” Arthur tells AFN, “was say that those lower courts don't have the ability to issue one order that bars the Trump administration from attempting to implement the president's executive order that limits birthright citizenship."
Arthur’s legal observation has been seconded by other legal observers, too, including J. Christian Adams, the former Justice Department attorney; and Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, tells AFN it appears the justices addressed the issue of nationwide injunctions rather than the issue before them about birthright citizenship. So he agrees with others the high court skirted around birthright citizenship.
"I think they're going to consider that issue but they're not going to make a ruling in this term," he says. "It'll probably be next year."
