Supreme Court: Ceding more power to Trump?

The Supreme Court has granted President Trump "the victory of his dreams," said Mark Joseph Stern in Slate. On the last day of its term, the justices finally ruled on Trump's "brazen" executive order decreeing an end to birthright citizenship—the Constitution's guarantee of citizenship to anyone born "within the jurisdiction of the United States"—for the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visa holders. Ominously, the court punted on the substantive issue, pausing Trump's order only until July 27. But in a vote split along ideological lines, the court's six conservatives gave Trump something more valuable: an end to the so-called universal injunctions that have allowed district court judges to block, nationwide, unconstitutional presidential orders. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered a dry "history lesson," claiming nationwide injunctions "likely exceed" the power Congress gave to courts in the Judiciary Act of 1789, which envisioned that rulings would apply only to named plaintiffs. The "real-world implications" of Barrett's dusty "textualism" will soon be upon us, said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark. One of our last defenses against Trump's "fascist takeover" has been neutralized. The government, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, now has "an open invitation" to "bypass the Constitution."

"Good riddance," said Nicholas Bagley in The Atlantic. Universal injunctions were rarely issued until the late 20th century, when political activists realized they needed only one like-minded partisan judge to block a presidential initiative across the nation. Since then, injunctions have become routine, "thwarting Republican and Democratic initiatives alike." During the Biden administration, right-wing judges issued nationwide blocks aimed at student debt relief, immigration reform, and the abortion drug mifepristone. Ending this abuse will reduce the "dysfunction" of our politics and our legal system, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. And egregious executive orders can still be pre-emptively blocked nationwide, via lawsuits filed by states or by class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of all affected citizens.

There is "legitimate debate" over universal injunctions, said Ruth Marcus in The New Yorker. But given Trump's tyrannical instincts, the court picked "the worst possible moment" to abolish them. And don't think that class actions will rein in an administration "bent on abusing the law," because this same Supreme Court recently tightened the rules for certifying large classes. Unless lower courts "sort things out" in the next few weeks, we'll see "citizenship chaos," said Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post. One possible outcome is that children born to undocumented mothers in, say, New Jersey, one of 22 states suing to block Trump's order, will be citizens, while those across the border in Pennsylvania—whose Republican attorney general hasn't joined the suit—won't be.

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This ruling may prove "less catastrophic than it first appears," said Mila Sohoni in SCOTUSblog. Barrett's opinion recognizes that blanket bans may still be needed in some cases—including, probably, birthright citizenship. And "most importantly," Congress can reinstate nationwide injunctions anytime it wants. "The court got it right," said Samuel Bray in The New York Times. However "attractive" the notion of heroic judges single-handedly blocking Trump's lawless orders may be, neither the Founders, nor Congress, gave them that power. The best way for judges to defend democracy is to "lead by example in adhering to the rule of law."