Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions, but fate of Trump birthright citizenship order unclear

By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON AP A divided Supreme Court on Friday ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions but the decision left unclear the fate of President Donald Trump s restrictions on birthright citizenship The outcome was a win for the Republican president who has complained about individual judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda But a conservative majority left open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked nationwide Trump s order would deny citizenship to U S -born children of people who are in the country illegally The cases now return to lower courts where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the high court ruling Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion The justices agreed with the Trump administration as well as President Joe Biden s Democratic administration before it that judges are overreaching by issuing orders that apply to everyone instead of just the parties before the court In dissent Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote The court s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the establishment to work around the Constitution This is so Sotomayor disclosed because the administration may be able to enforce a guidelines even when it has been challenged and detected to be unconstitutional by a lower court Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen including children born to mothers in the country illegally The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution s th Amendment In a notable Supreme Court decision from United States v Wong Kim Ark the court held that the only children who did not automatically receive U S citizenship upon being born on U S soil were the children of diplomats who have allegiance to another governing body enemies present in the U S during hostile occupation those born on foreign ships and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes The U S is among about countries where birthright citizenship the principle of jus soli or right of the soil is applied Majority of are in the Americas and Canada and Mexico are among them Trump and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen which he called a priceless and profound gift in the executive order he signed on his first day in office The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States a phrase used in the amendment and therefore are not entitled to citizenship But states immigrants and rights groups that have sued to block the executive order have accused the administration of trying to unsettle the broader understanding of birthright citizenship that has been accepted since the amendment s adoption Judges have uniformly ruled against the administration Related Articles Trump says US has signed a deal with China on transaction without giving details Trump bill s Medicaid provision that s now in limbo could cost Colorado billion Supreme Court has cases to decide including birthright citizenship States can cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood the Supreme Court rules Key Medicaid provision in Trump s bill is revealed to violate Senate rules The GOP is scrambling The Justice Department had argued that individual judges lack the power to give nationwide effect to their rulings The Trump administration instead wished the justices to allow Trump s plan to go into effect for everyone except the handful of people and groups that sued Failing that the administration argued that the plan could remain blocked for now in the states that sued New Hampshire is covered by a separate order that is not at issue in this affair As a further fallback the administration urged at a minimum to be allowed to make residents announcements about how it plans to carry out the plan if it eventually is allowed to take effect