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The Supreme Court has handed Donald Trump a victory in his effort to forcefully remake US policy, in a decision that blocked lower courts from halting his order to end birthright citizenship nationwide.
The court’s 6-3 ruling, which split along ideological lines, was issued in a case addressing Trump’s executive order from his first day in office seeking to curtail citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. It strengthens Trump’s hand on a wide array of issues from trade to immigration.
The court’s ruling did not address the merits of so-called birthright citizenship itself, which automatically grants US nationality to all children born in the country, including those of unauthorised immigrants. But it granted the administration’s request to limit injunctions by lower courts, which have blocked his policy measures on issues ranging from union representation to gender transition care.
“GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court!” the president posted on his Truth Social network on Friday. “Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard.”
The principal impact of the ruling is to limit lower courts’ ability to make rulings with an impact well beyond the parties in a case.
“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” the majority opinion said.
Trump’s executive order will not go into effect for 30 days, allowing lower courts to “determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate”, according to the opinion authored by conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the majority opinion, reasoning it would clear the way for unlawful policies to take effect.
The government “asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone,” said liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor. She highlighted that every court that had assessed Trump’s birthright order found it “patently unconstitutional”.
She also warned against the precedent set by the opinion. “No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,” she said. “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”.
Trump and other top officials have harshly criticised district court judges, who the administration claims have acted beyond their authority by freezing executive orders on everything from trade to deportations.
Trump has argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship, did not “extend citizenship universally to everyone born” in the US.
