On Friday, the final day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s current term, the Court handed the Trump Administration a win in the president’s push to end birthright citizenship. And it could have far-reaching implications that go beyond the present administration.
According to NBC News, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that will “narrow the scope of nationwide injunctions imposed by judges so that they apply only to states, groups and individuals that sued.”
“Today’s ruling nominally allows the Trump administration to put the birthright citizenship order into effect across most of the country, but it’s almost certainly going to be more important concerning the president’s other policy initiatives,” Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said of the ruling.
“That’s because lower courts will still be able to (quickly) prevent the birthright citizenship order from being enforced — whether by meeting the higher standard the Court articulated today for a nationwide injunction or by certifying a nationwide class action.”
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Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee who many MAGA fans seemed to sour on earlier this year, wrote for the majority, writing “when a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”
Powerful words from Justice Jackson as the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority grants President Trump even more power over us. pic.twitter.com/ABUCdJTp2Z
— Stuart Richardson (@StuLRichardson) June 27, 2025
The ruling does not determine the merits of the birthright citizenship change, but merely “whether judges had the authority to put it on hold across the entire country.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, in a dissent, that the ruling represented a “travesty for the rule of the law” and an “open invitation to bypass the constitution.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a separate dissent, called the ruling “an existential threat to the rule of law.”
On Truth Social, President Trump touted a “giant win” at the Supreme Court.
There was one silver lining for Democrats: The possibility that the ruling will help future Democratic presidents. After all, many of the Biden Administration’s major initiatives were blocked by the very nationwide injunctions that the Court now finds illegitimate.
Basically everything Biden tried to do – ban noncompete agreements, student debt forgiveness, cracking down on payday lenders, etc etc etc – was immediately blocked by nationwide injunctions from the Fifth Circuit. Next Dem president may have just been unshackled. https://t.co/LAUwoc0aph
— Paul McLeod (@pdmcleod) June 27, 2025
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
