US President Donald Trump on Friday hailed a "giant win" as the Supreme Court limited the ability of lower court judges to halt what critics claim "unruly Trump policies."
However, the top court left the room open for class-action lawsuits to challenge Trump's orders. And yet, these would only allow specific groups or localities to enjoy exemptions from Trump's "controversial policies."
Until now, lower court judges could enforce nationwide exemptions from orders of a US president.
To this end, Friday's Supreme Court order applies to all future US presidents as the court sought to "balance" the power between the federal courts and executive branch.
In a 6-3 ruling stemming from Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court said nationwide injunctions issued by district court judges "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts".
The top court did not immediately rule on the constitutionality of Trump's executive order seeking to end automatic citizenship for children born on US soil.
But the broader decision on the scope of judicial rulings will remove a big roadblock to Trump's often highly controversial orders and reaffirm the White House's power.
Trump on Friday hailed the Supreme Court's ruling as a "giant win," saying that a “whole list” of his administration’s policies can now move forward.
"GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court! Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard," he wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
"Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them," said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, author of the opinion.
"When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too," Barrett said in an opinion joined by the other five conservative justices on the court.
The three liberal justices dissented.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “The court’s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution.” This is so, Sotomayor said, because the administration may be able to enforce a policy even when it has been challenged and found to be unconstitutional by a lower court.
The ruling has far-reaching ramifications for the ability of the judiciary to rein in Trump or future American presidents, AP and AFP reported.
The Trump administration had asked the Supreme Court to restrict the application of a district court's injunction solely to the parties who brought the case and the district where the judge presides.
Trump has claimed courts overstepped their power by handing down such nationwide orders.
Past presidents have also complained about national injunctions shackling their agenda, but such orders have sharply risen under Trump, who has seen more in two months than Democrat Joe Biden did during his first three years in office.
Birthright citizenship
The ruling leaves the future of birthright citizenship unclear, but signaled the president’s controversial plan to effectively end it may never be enforced.
Ken Cuccinelli, the former deputy secretary of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump in his first term, called the Supreme Court’s ruling today a “strong opinion,” but noted “it’s not complete on the entire subject of stopping cases en route.”
Cuccinelli referred to the still available ability of plaintiffs to get broad relief through class action lawsuits.
“This is a big win, not just for President Trump, for the presidency because this is a procedural rule. They didn’t decide on birthright citizenship, they decided on the process by which that dispute will be handled and that will apply to all presidents in the future,” Cuccinelli told CNN.
Cuccinelli said Trump’s moves to effectively end birthright citizenship will eventually be resolved.
“I believe it will be decided by the Supreme Court in the next year or two,” he said.
Trump's birthright citizenship order has been deemed unconstitutional by courts in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state, leading the president to make an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in an effort to get the top court to strike down the use of nationwide injunctions.
The issue has become a rallying cry for Trump and his Republican allies, who accuse the judiciary of stymying his agenda against the will of voters.
Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship is just one of a number of his agenda items that have been blocked by judges around the country – both Democratic and Republican appointees – since he took office in January.
During oral arguments in the case before the Supreme Court in May, both conservative and liberal justices had expressed concerns about the increasing use of nationwide injunctions by district courts in recent years.
Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship decrees that children born to parents in the United States illegally or on temporary visas would not automatically become citizens.
The three lower courts ruled that to be a violation of the 14th Amendment, which states: "All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
The US is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship – the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” – is applied.
Bd-pratidin English/TR
