How the Supreme Court’s Ruling on ‘Universal Injunctions’ May Affect Birthright Citizenship – FactCheck.org

In a June 27 ruling, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to partially halt nationwide injunctions blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for certain people born in the U.S. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee who wrote the majority opinion, said “universal injunctions” issued by district judges “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.”

In the three prior cases addressed in the ruling, district courts issued the injunctions after siding with plaintiffs who argued that the executive order Trump issued on Jan. 20 violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says, in part, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The idea was to grant citizenship to recently freed slaves, but the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, also forms the basis of the country’s longstanding policy of granting birthright citizenship to anyone born on American soil.

Trump’s executive order says that the amendment’s citizenship clause does not apply to individuals born to parents who are in the U.S. illegally or on a temporary visa.

While the Supreme Court did not weigh in on whether the executive order is constitutional, the justices ruled, in a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, that the injunctions blocking its implementation across the country were “broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.” The decision effectively means that federal district judges can no longer issue sweeping injunctions that shield everyone in the country from an administration policy rather than just the parties who challenged the government in court.

Trump hailed the ruling in a June 27 press conference from the White House briefing room.

“This morning, the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law, in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch,” the president said. He argued that “a handful of radical left judges” had used universal injunctions “to overrule the rightful powers of the president” and “to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for.”

Over the years, such injunctions have been used to block the policies of Republican and Democratic presidents.

What Happens Going Forward?

Barrett’s opinion said that Trump’s executive order, which would apply to children born on or after Feb. 19, 2025, could take effect 30 days from June 27, the date of the Supreme Court’s decision. Meanwhile, “lower courts should determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate.”

The executive order originally gave “all executive departments and agencies” 30 days to devise and issue public guidance on how the order would be executed. Yet, at the June 27 press conference at the White House, Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, would not say how Trump’s policy would be enforced.

In response to a reporter who asked, she called it “pending litigation” that would be decided by the Supreme Court in its next term that starts in October. She said that implementation would be discussed “after the litigation,” but it’s not clear when the court may address whether the executive order is constitutional.

In her opinion, Barrett wrote that the court did not address that question because the Trump administration did not ask the court to do so in the application requesting a partial stay of the injunctions. “Instead, the issue the Court decides is whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions,” the opinion says.

As we’ve written, many who argue that the issue has already been settled point to the Supreme Court’s 1898 decision upholding the birthright citizenship portion of the 14th Amendment in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. The case involved a man, Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to parents who were citizens of China but legally living in the U.S. (There was no such thing as illegal immigration at the time.) Some argue that while that case settles the issue of whether the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to children born to noncitizen parents in the country legally, it doesn’t necessarily settle the issue regarding children born in the U.S. to parents in the country illegally.

Potential Class Actions

For now, the injunctions previously granted by district judges likely only provide relief from Trump’s executive order to the individuals, organizations and 22 states who were part of those cases against the government.

However, the Supreme Court left open the possibility that plaintiffs could pursue class-action lawsuits to more broadly block potentially unlawful federal policies. Class actions allow one or more plaintiffs to bring a case on behalf of a similarly affected group, or class, of people.

Not long after the court’s June 27 ruling, a group of plaintiffs, including two immigrant rights groups, refiled their lawsuit as a class-action case in Maryland, and another lawsuit seeking class-action certification was filed in New Hampshire by a group led by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Because plaintiffs still have time “to switch from universal injunctions to other avenues like class actions” challenging the administration’s policy, Samuel Bray, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, said he believes that the Supreme Court’s ruling will not result in a change to birthright citizenship.

“I expect the courts to continue to reject in case after case the government’s arguments for the birthright citizenship order,” Bray wrote in a June 28 opinion piece for the New York Times. “The likely result is that President Trump’s unconstitutional executive order on birthright citizenship will never go into effect.”

But if those attempts at class-action lawsuits are unsuccessful – because not all cases qualify for class-action status – it may mean that, at least temporarily, some children born in the U.S. are not automatically citizens at the time of birth.

“I mean, this creates a potential for patchwork citizenship,” Amanda Frost, a professor of law at the University of Virginia Law School, said on “PBS NewsHour” last Friday. “And, of course, Americans, all of us inhabiting the United States, are free to move from one state to the other. There’s no borders. There’s no passports. And now you’re a citizen if you’re born in one state or not the other potentially.”

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