In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on June 27 limiting the ability of federal judges to issue universal injunctions to temporarily pause presidential policies and actions. The ruling came in a case involving President Trump’s January 20 executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship in the United States.
NIJC’s Director of Litigation Keren Zwick responded with the following statement:
“Nationwide injunctions have been an important tool to prevent blatantly illegal and unconstitutional conduct. That was appropriate here in response to the administration’s unconstitutional attempt to end birthright citizenship, and it has been appropriate in the face of many other instances of overreach in the immigration context. This decision opens a pathway for the president to break the law at will. By the time the courts are able to declare the president’s conduct illegal–no matter how blatant and harmful that conduct is–the damage will already be done.
“It should be noted that no member of the Court actually defended the president’s birthright citizenship proclamation on the merits, and today’s decision did not reach the question of whether the president’s executive order is legal. The Court merely found that lower courts could not enjoin the order beyond the parties in each individual case. That does not prevent class actions from continuing. It does not even preclude states from obtaining broad remedies where needed. But it has cruelly thrown the lives and futures of thousands of families in our country into uncertainty.”