U.S. Supreme Court fights nationwide bans in citizen cases to stop presidential orders
The U.S. Supreme Court began hearing debates on Thursday about Donald Trump’s attempt to enforce its executive orders on a massive scale to limit birthright citizenship, a move that will affect thousands of babies born each year as the Republican president seeks a long-standing major shift to the U.S. Constitution.
The judges are considering urgent requests from the administration to expand restrictions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts, thus blocking Trump's national directives. The judge found that Trump's orders – a key part of his difficult approach to immigration – could have violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Democratic lawyers from 22 states and immigration and immigration rights advocates who have been pregnant in individuals have questioned Trump’s order.
Cases are unusual because the administration has used it to argue that federal judges lack the power to enact national or “universal” injunctions and require judges to rule and enforce Trump’s orders in this way, even if they do not weigh their legal cases.
Deputy Attorney General D. John Sauer argues about the Trump administration, saying the increasing use of judges is “pathology.”
The widespread ban has become increasingly controversial and has been opposed by Republican and Democratic governments in recent years. Judges often hinder Trump’s active use of executive orders and other initiatives this year, sometimes adopting a general ban.
Plaintiffs and other critics say Trump’s instructions are a classic example of a judge who should reserve the power to issue universal relief even if the Supreme Court weakens that power.
Sunday Magazine18:47How Donald Trump's executive order responds to legal scrutiny
Explanation of the increase in national ban
According to the Center for Progress, there were 17 national bans nationwide in the first two months of Trump’s presidency, more than the entire presidents of Joe Biden, Barack Obama (12) and George W. Bush (6). According to the same liberal think tank, there were 64 bans nationwide during Trump's first presidency.
Conservative Judge Clarence Thomas agrees with Sauer that the general ban “has surged over the past three decades or so.”
Many Republican lawmakers and policy experts believe that these numbers prove that the legal system has been “weapons” against Trump, while Democrats object to the fact that no modern president has more importance to the law than Trump.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s team is refuting concerns about multiple attempts to slow the agenda through the court, including the fight to prevent Elon Musk from accessing information, as he suggests a major overhaul of federal public services.
The issue is intertwined with concerns about “judge shopping”, with various interest groups and plaintiffs litigating before they consider them political allies or judges friendly to their cause. The U.S. Judicial Conference, the policy-making body of the federal court, has been issuing guidance to reduce this practice.
In this case, Trump’s executive order directs federal agencies to refuse to recognize citizenship of children we were born, who do not have at least one parent, who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, also known as “green card” holders.
In 2018, the Immigration Policy Institute estimated that approximately 4.4 million American children had parents who were undocumented immigrants.
The plaintiff argued that Trump's instructions violated the 14th Amendment. The amendment’s citizenship clause states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to their jurisdiction are citizens of the United States and the country in which they reside.”
The 14th Amendment dismissed the notorious Supreme Court ruling of 1857, known as Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied citizenship against black people and helped fuel the civil war. The amendment was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War in the post-slavery era in the United States.
In the 1980s, the UK and Australia revised the laws to prevent so-called birth travel, requiring parents to become citizens or permanent residents so that newborns can qualify for citizenship.
For many years, Canada’s Citizenship Act and court rulings, including one involving children of Russian spies, have been guided by the principle that citizenship is granted based on the place of birth rather than the parent’s citizenship.
Officials believe that citizenship rules may vary by country
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she believes Trump's order violates several Supreme Court precedents regarding citizenship. If Trump’s order goes into effect, thousands of children will be born in the United States without citizenship, leaving some of them stateless, Sotomayor said.
According to the plaintiff, if Trump's orders are allowed to stand, more than 150,000 newborn children will be rejected each year.
The Government believes that the Citizenship Conditions have not been extended to immigrants in the country, or are legal but temporary immigrants, such as college students or work visas.
Freedom Judge Elena Kagan said there was no general injunction to block Trump’s order, and the Supreme Court eventually decided nationwide the legitimacy of the directive could be years.
“There are all kinds of abuses of national bans. But I think the problem with this situation is, if people think it's obvious, [executive order] Is it illegal? How about your set of rules, there is no possibility of any national ban? Kagan asked Sauer.
Thal noted that after the dispute infiltrated in the lower court, the Supreme Court could finally declare the legal advantages of the policy, prompting conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to express skepticism.
“Do you really want to say there is no way to do this quickly to answer Justice Kagan?” Barrett said.
Sotomayor compared Trump's instructions to the president's hypothetical actions, and despite the Second Amendment's reserve and right to carry weapons, every American who owns one American's gun.
Thal said the ban exceeded the judicial power granted under Article 3 of the Constitution and undermined the Constitution’s “cautious balanced power separation” between the U.S. government’s judicial, enforcement and legislative branches.
One of the first execution orders passed by U.S. President Donald Trump may temporarily suspend orders for Canadians living and working in the United States, but it is only the beginning of a legal battle.
If the justice believes that states have legal provisions requiring lawsuits, the government is seeking to narrow the scope of the injunction to apply only to individual plaintiffs and 22 states. This could make the policy effective in 28 states that do not file lawsuits, in addition to any plaintiffs living in these states.
New Jersey Attorney General Jeremy Feigenbaum is a lawyer in the debate states, asking judges to deny the government’s demands. Feigenbaum said the injunctions issued in the lawsuit against “major pocket books and sovereignty harms” were properly tailored and they will encounter them from Trump’s actions.
Feigenbaum said the government’s practice in the lawsuit “will require citizenship to change depending on the state you were born in.”
“Since the 14th Amendment, our country has never allowed U.S. nationality to vary depending on the state where someone lives,” Fedenbaum said.
Feigenbaum also pointed out that the legal issues surrounding Trump's executive order were resolved by the Supreme Court 127 years ago.
In 1898, a Supreme Court ruled that it was interpreted in the case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Long as a guarantee that children born in the United States have the right to the children of non-citizen parents to obtain U.S. citizenship.
