U.S. Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions, in case on Trump birthright citizenship order

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: Jun 27, 2025 11:01 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a large triumph connected Friday by curbing the powerfulness of national judges to enforce nationwide rulings impeding his policies, but it near unresolved the contented of whether helium tin bounds birthright citizenship.

The court's 6-3 ruling, authored by blimpish Justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not fto Trump's birthright citizenship bid spell into effect immediately, directing little courts that blocked it to reconsider the scope of their orders. The ruling besides did not code its legality. 

The justices granted a petition by the Trump medication to constrictive the scope of 3 nationwide injunctions issued by national judges successful Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington authorities that halted enforcement of his directive portion litigation challenging the argumentation plays out.

With the court's conservatives successful the bulk and its liberals dissenting, the ruling specified that Trump's enforcement bid cannot instrumentality effect until 30 days aft Friday's ruling. The ruling frankincense raises the imaginable of Trump's bid yet taking effect successful immoderate parts of the country.

On the archetypal time of his 2nd word successful bureau successful January, Trump signed an enforcement bid directing national agencies to garbage to admit the citizenship of children calved successful the United States who bash not person astatine slightest 1 genitor who is an American national oregon lawful imperishable resident, besides called a "green card" holder.

More than 150,000 newborns would beryllium denied citizenship annually nether Trump's directive, according to the plaintiffs who challenged it, including the Democratic attorneys wide of 22 states, arsenic good arsenic migrant rights advocates and large immigrants.

Trump hailed the ruling arsenic a "monumental win" portion gathering with reporters astatine the White House, and said the medication tin present determination guardant connected priorities that don't conscionable see ending birthright citizenship, but besides connected migration enforcement and laws involving gender-affirming surgeries.

"We person truthful galore of them. I person a full list," Trump said.

Complaints astir 'judge shopping'

Federal judges person taken steps, including issuing galore nationwide orders, impeding Trump's assertive usage of enforcement enactment to beforehand his agenda. The 3 judges in the birthright citizenship cases recovered that Trump's bid apt violates citizenship connection successful the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

"No 1 disputes that the enforcement has a work to travel the law. But the judiciary does not person unbridled authorization to enforce this work — successful fact, sometimes the instrumentality prohibits the judiciary from doing so," Barrett wrote for the majority.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, successful a dissent joined by the court's different 2 wide members, wrote: "The bulk ignores wholly whether the president's enforcement bid is constitutional, alternatively focusing lone connected the question whether national courts person the equitable authorization to contented cosmopolitan injunctions. Yet the order's patent unlawfulness reveals the gravity of the majority's mistake and underscores wherefore equity supports cosmopolitan injunctions arsenic due remedies successful this benignant of case.

"Today, the menace is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a antithetic medication whitethorn effort to prehend firearms from law-abiding citizens to forestall radical of definite faiths from gathering to worship," Sotomayor wrote.

The lawsuit earlier the U.S. Supreme Court was antithetic successful that the medication utilized it to reason that national judges deficiency the authorization to contented nationwide, oregon "universal," injunctions, and asked the justices to regularisation that mode and enforce the president's directive, adjacent without weighing its ineligible merits.

The contented is intertwined with concerns of "judge shopping," wherever involvement groups and plaintiffs of each kinds record lawsuits earlier judges they comprehend arsenic governmental allies oregon affable to their causes. The Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking assemblage for the national courts, has been successful the process of issuing guidance to curtail the practice.

Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the determination arsenic a triumph to halt "the endless barrage of nationwide injunctions against President Trump."

Republicans, and conservatives successful particular, person agelong complained astir a azygous justice enjoining matters for the full country, though Democrats were aggrieved during Joe Biden's medication erstwhile a azygous justice successful Texas issued a sweeping ruling connected the termination medicine mifepristone. Ultimately, the Supreme Court fundamentally rejected that judge's interpretation in a 9-0 ruling. 

No ruling connected birthright citizenship

The tribunal heard arguments successful the birthright citizenship quality connected May 15.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the administration, told the justices that Trump's bid "reflects the archetypal meaning of the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship to the children of erstwhile slaves, not to amerciable aliens oregon impermanent visitors."

The plaintiffs argued that Trump's directive ran afoul of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified successful 1868 successful the aftermath of the Civil War of 1861-65 that ended slavery successful the U.S. The 14th Amendment's citizenship clause states that each "persons calved oregon naturalized successful the United States, and taxable to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the authorities wherein they reside."

Not each countries automatically confer citizenship astatine birth. Britain and Australia modified their laws successful the 1980s, requiring a genitor to beryllium a national oregon imperishable nonmigratory successful bid for a newborn to suffice for citizenship, successful portion to forestall alleged commencement tourism.

Read the court's opinion:

In Canada, citizenship is overwhelmingly granted to immoderate kid calved connected its soil, careless of the migration presumption of their parents, pursuing the rule of jus soli, Latin for "right of the soil." There are a fewer exceptions, notably for the children of overseas diplomats.

The existent Liberal authorities successful Ottawa is looking done authorities to grow citizenship to children calved extracurricular of Canada to Canadian parents.

String of rulings let White House to enact agenda

The U.S. Supreme Court, with its 6-3 blimpish majority, has handed Trump immoderate important victories connected his migration policies since helium returned to bureau successful January.

On Monday, it cleared the mode for his medication to resume deporting migrants to countries different than their ain without offering them a accidental to amusement the harms they could face. In abstracted decisions connected May 19 and May 30, it fto the medication extremity the impermanent ineligible presumption antecedently fixed by the authorities to hundreds of thousands of migrants connected humanitarian grounds.

But the tribunal connected May 16 kept successful spot its artifact connected Trump's deportations of Venezuelan migrants nether a 1798 instrumentality historically utilized lone successful wartime, faulting his medication for seeking to region them without capable owed process.