Trump handed ‘giant win’ as Supreme Court curbs judges’ power to block his orders

Washington: The United States Supreme Court has delivered a major victory for President Donald Trump, ruling that lower courts cannot grant universal injunctions to block government policy, and allowing his administration to move forward with a raft of controversial policies temporarily held up by litigation.

In a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, the nation’s highest court found that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts”, and partially stayed injunctions blocking Trump’s executive order to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the US.

President Donald Trump celebrated the “giant win” and said his administration would now move forward with a raft of controversial policies.Credit: AP

The ruling, which came on the court’s final day to issue opinions before the northern summer break, is highly significant because large swaths of Trump’s agenda have been temporarily blocked while legal challenges are brought by Democratic states, activist groups and affected individuals.

Trump, who has raged at the judges issuing such injunctions, accusing them of overstepping their authority and usurping his power, scheduled an impromptu press conference on Friday (early Saturday AEST) to celebrate the ruling.

“This was a big decision, amazing decision, one that we’re very happy about,” Trump said. “The Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law ... there are people elated all over the country.”

Trump said a handful of “radical left judges” could no longer overrule the rightful powers of the president and “dictate the law for the entire nation”, which he called a grave threat to democracy. He said his administration had been hit with more nationwide injunctions than were issued in the 20th century.

Donald Trump and Attorney-General Pam Bondi on Friday.Credit: AP

He also indicated his government would move forward with ending birthright citizenship, “which now comes to the fore”, along with several other controversial policies that had been temporarily blocked by the courts, such as suspending refugee resettlement and stopping federal funding for transgender surgeries.

“It’s a giant [ruling],” Trump said. In a separate social media post, he heralded the “GIANT WIN”.

The three liberal justices on the bench dissented, and in their dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision was “a grave an attack on our system of law” and warned: “No right is safe in the new legal regime the court creates.”

Writing the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett – Trump’s 2020 appointee to the court to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg – said federal courts did not exercise general oversight of the government’s executive branch. Rather, they resolved cases and controversies consistent with the authority given to them by Congress.

“When a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” she wrote.

One of the key reasons the majority ruled against the universal injunction was its finding that it was a modern phenomenon that “lacks a historical pedigree” as a form of relief laid out by the US Constitution.

“Nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter,” Barrett wrote. “Thus, under the Judiciary Act, federal courts lack authority to issue them.”

In her dissent, Sotomayor said the government had asked the court to find that “no matter how illegal” a law or policy was, the courts could never tell the executive to stop enforcing it against anyone except the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit.

“The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet, shamefully, this court plays along,” she wrote.

“Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.”

Sotomayor said the majority opinion meant unless there was a class action lawsuit, courts could not completely enjoin even plainly unlawful policies. Constitutional protections were therefore rendered meaningless for anyone not party to the case.

“Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent,” Sotomayor wrote.

In a separate dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the decision of the majority posed “an existential threat to the rule of law”.

The Supreme Court did not contemplate the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, nor whether it violated the Nationality Act. Such questions were not raised in this case, but will likely be decided in October under pending litigation.

The long-standing principle and entitlement of birthright citizenship arises from the 14th amendment to the Constitution, which states: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Trump’s executive order asserted the clause should not be interpreted as extending citizenship to every person born in the US. Specifically, it says the clause does not apply when a person’s mother was unlawfully present in the US and their father was not a US citizen or permanent resident the time of their birth.

The order also asserted the clause did not apply when a person’s mother was lawfully but temporarily present in the US and the father was not a US citizen or permanent resident at the time of their birth. That included a mother visiting the US on a student, work or tourist visa.

Attorney-General Pam Bondi said the administration’s plans for ending birthright citizenship would depend on the outcome of litigation due to be decided by the Supreme Court in October.

The priority was removing violent criminals from the US, Bondi said. “You should all [be] safer now that President Trump can deport all of these gangs and not one District Court judge can think they’re an emperor over this administration and his executive powers and why the people of the United States elected him.”

The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, called the ruling a terrifying step towards authoritarianism and “a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court”.

“By weakening the power of district courts to check the presidency, the court is not defending the Constitution – it’s defacing it,” Schumer said. “This ruling hands Donald Trump yet another green light in his crusade to unravel the foundations of American democracy.”

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