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The Supreme Court handed US President Donald Trump a victory in his effort to revoke birthright citizenship, in a decision that blocks lower courts from halting policies nationwide.
While granting the administration’s request to limit injunctions by lower courts, Friday’s 6-3 decision did not rule on the merits of birthright citizenship itself, which automatically grants US nationality to all children born in the country, including those of unauthorised immigrants.
Trump issued his executive order to deny citizenship in such cases on January 20, the day he returned to office.
“GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court!” the president posted on his Truth Social network on Friday. “Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard.”
The principal impact of the ruling is to limit lower courts’ ability to make rulings with an impact well beyond the parties in a case.
“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” the majority opinion said.
Trump’s executive order will not now go into effect for 30 days, allowing lower courts to “determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate”, according to the opinion authored by conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Trump and other top officials have harshly criticised district court judges, who the administration claims have acted beyond their authority by freezing executive orders on everything from trade to deportations.
Trump has argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship, did not “extend citizenship universally to everyone born” in the US.
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