The Supreme Court has ruled on a complicated case with broad implications for disputes between the federal judiciary and presidents, reining in the power of federal judges.
The Trump administration had asked the court to put an end to nationwide injunctions issued by lower federal courts – an issue that came up during the legal fight over President Trump’s attempt to challenge the issue of “birthright citizenship.”
The actual executive order about citizenship was not officially the subject of this particular ruling. Instead, the high court was focusing on whether lower federal courts can issue rulings that assert power over the president, overturning actions of the Executive Branch.
In a big win for President Trump, the high court ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, as several federal judges have tried to do this year.
Still, the conservative majority’s ruling does leave open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could be blocked nationwide.
Court analysts, discussing the case on SCOTUSblog, report that Justice Barrett wrote the opinion for the Court in the 6-3 ruling.
She wrote, “Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them. When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”
Justice Clarence Thomas issued a concurring opinion, clarifying that the Court “today puts an end to the ‘increasingly common’ practice of federal courts issuing universal injunctions.”
The Story Behind the Case
In early 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14160, aimed at ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents. The move sparked an immediate legal backlash. In response, Washington state’s attorney general and three other states sued the Trump administration, challenging the executive action.
President Trump’s executive order was then halted by at least four federal judges, including district court judges, who had issued nationwide injunctions. Nationwide injunctions are temporary orders that block a policy from taking effect across the entire country, even beyond the parties involved in the case.
On Friday, the Supreme Court did not decide the constitutionality of the citizenship policy, at least not yet, but whether one judge should have the authority to stop federal action nationwide.
During arguments before the high court, the focus was primarily on judicial authority, while the constitutional weight of birthright citizenship and its clash with Trump’s order were also discussed. Still, the debate came down to the merits of the case and whether judges can issue nationwide edicts.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion in today’s ruling defending the idea of nationwide injunctions and calling the majority opinion “an existential threat to the rule of law.” She continued, “It is important to recognize that the Executive’s bid to vanquish so-called ‘universal injunctions’ is, at bottom, a request for this Court’s permission to engage in unlawful behavior.”
Justice Barrett replied as follows:
“We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary. No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation—in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so.”
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