Questions on birthright citizenship, nationwide relief remain in the Northwest after Supreme Court ruling

While babies born in Washington and a slate of other blue states will continue to automatically qualify for American citizenship, that right is “tenuous” for those in red states that have not challenged President Donald Trump’s attempt to end the practice , said Washington Attorney General Nick Brown.

At least for the next 30 days.

“If you are living in a state that did not participate in this coalition of action against the Trump administration, then your rights are in question,” Brown said. “And I think that is explicitly clear.”

On Friday, the Supreme Court found that nationwide injunctions from federal district courts have too often prevented presidential administrations from implementing policies. But what the case means for a court’s ability to issue sweeping nationwide rulings, and the future of a guaranteed right to citizenship for babies born in the country, remains unclear.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that “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,” Barrett wrote.

In a case born out of President Donald Trump’s attempt to end guaranteed birthright citizenship through executive order, the U.S. Supreme Court has sought to limit the ability of district court judges to issue nationwide injunctions in challenges of executive action.

The decision Friday does not address whether Trump’s executive order violates either the Citizenship Clause or the Nationality Act, something that frustrated a collection of attorneys general who have challenged the executive order.

“I think the Supreme Court had the opportunity to provide clarity to the entire nation, to reaffirm what has been the law of this land for over 150 years, and missed that opportunity with this order this morning,” Brown said Friday.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday the court will likely rule on the matter in a future session, potentially and as early as next year.

“Most likely, it will be decided in October, in the next session,” Bondi said.

What is a nationwide injunction?

For decades, nationwide injunctions have limited presidential administrations from both parties from implementing policies as legal challenges make their way through the courts. The injunctions can be issued by one of nearly 700 federal district court judges to block a federal government policy or action from being enforced nationwide, not just to those who brought the lawsuit.

“It goes without doubt that both Democratic and Republican administrations have been plagued or stymied by the use of nationwide injunctions by judges sitting in single districts, using their equitable power to curtail the executive’s ability to get things done,” said Michael Cecil, an assistant law professor at Gonzaga Law School.

During oral arguments in May, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court that universal injunctions create far-reaching problems and promote “forum shopping,” in which parties file a case in a jurisdiction that is most sympathetic to the arguments.

“It’s undeniable there’s a political context to the use of nationwide injunctions,” Cecil said. “The Biden administration went to favorable district court judges that they knew would be likely to issue nationwide injunctions, much like the Trump administration does the same thing. So it’s a difficult problem.”

Nationwide injunctions have risen during the past 60 years and have increasingly prevented the past five presidential administrations from implementing policies, Sauer said.

“These injunctions – known as ‘universal injunctions’ – likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,” Barrett wrote in the opinion.

Speaking at the White House Friday, Trump said the court delivered a “monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law.”

“Instead of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation,” Trump said. “In practice, this meant that if any one of the nearly 700 federal judges disagreed with the policy of a duly elected president of the United States, he or she could block that policy from going into effect, or at least delay it for many years and tie it up in the court system.”

On Friday, Trump reiterated a desire to end guaranteed birthright citizenship. The president said the ruling will also aid his administration’s efforts to restrict funding for sanctuary jurisdictions, the ability to suspend refugee resettlement and freezing federal funding, among other policies.

“Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” Trump said.

Cecil said that in recent years, the Supreme Court has signaled “its reticence to support the nationwide injunction as a tool of district courts.”

Cecil said that while the majority opinion does not eliminate nationwide injunctions as a method of relief, it “made narrow the circumstances in which district courts could issue nationwide injunctions.”

However, the circumstances for when the injunctions can be issued is unclear, Cecil said, as the Supreme Court “did not say anything definitive.”

Cecil said the most likely outcome is for a district court judge to reissue a nationwide injunction in the case, prompting the issue to return to the Supreme Court.

“I think at the end of the day, we’d be coming back up to the Supreme Court on this very same question,” Cecil said.

The future of birthright citizenship

Trump has sought to end guaranteed citizenship and signed an executive order on his first day of his second term that claimed a baby born in the country must have at least one parent who is either a citizen or a lawful permanent resident to automatically qualify for citizenship.

Trump’s order was immediately challenged by several groups of states, including Washington, with federal judges soon issuing nationwide injunctions to block the executive order from taking effect across the country.

As he issued a preliminary injunction in February, Seattle-based U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour said, “It has become ever more apparent that to our president the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals.”

In an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court filed in March, the Trump administration asked the justices to narrow court orders to the people and groups that filed suit, and to find that the states lacked legal standing to bring their challenges.

While Bondi indicated the case would likely be decided in the next Supreme Court session, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said birthright citizenship “remains the law of the land.”

“(The Supreme Court) also said very clearly that it leaves open to the district court whether or not a nationwide injunction is necessary to give states complete relief,” Platkin said. “Something that we’ve argued at every level, including the United States Supreme Court.”

Platkin said the plaintiff states will return to the district court level to again ask for nationwide relief. Should nationwide relief not be issued, the attorney generals said the potential for birthright citizenship to be applicable in some, but not all, states creates an array of logistical difficulties.

“It’s really, really difficult to imagine the Department of Justice and administration can justify and explain how this would be administered on a case-by-case basis,” Brown said. “It’s practically impossible to do that. And we feel confident that each district court will continue to affirm that.”

Reactions to Friday’s rulings

As oral arguments in the case were heard in May, hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside of the Supreme Court in support of birthright citizenship. The scene was more sedated Friday morning, with Roberto Juarez and Maria Garavaglia of the Get Free Movement the only protesters in front of the court after a slate of rulings were issued.

In an interview, Juarez said his group is opposed to the court “rubber-stamping” Trump administration policies in several of its recent rulings, including birthright citizenship, voting rights, the ability for parents to opt their students out of LGBTQ-related lessons in schools and health care for transgender children.

“The MAGA justices are just green-lighting everything Trump wants,” Juarez said.

Olga Lucia Herrera, a volunteer at the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, said Friday that rather than “jumping up and down about what Trump is trying to rule or undo, we need to pay close attention to how much power he’s trying to consolidate.”

“The bigger issue here isn’t just about birthright citizenship, it’s about testing the limits of executive authority,” Herrera said. “And of course, it’s deeply troubling that he’s choosing to experiment with that power on some of the most vulnerable people in our country.”

Malou Chávez, executive director for Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said she was “very sad for our community members who you know will ultimately be impacted, and will create this class of community members without access, without claim to citizenship, anywhere and without potential benefits.”

“It’s going to be long-lasting, years from now, to look back on and think about these decisions that the courts are making and, of course, ultimately, the administration is leading efforts that decide who belongs and who doesn’t and who gets to be excluded,” Chávez said.

Morella Pérez Suels – founder of VenSpokane, a group for Venezuelans in the city – said that while she understands the president’s desire to put order in the immigration system, “we must be very careful in how this issue is addressed and the strategies that are being implemented, since by violating the Constitution of the Republic, may affect future decisions in any other areas.”

Spokesman-Review reporters Orion Donovan Smith and Monica Carrillo-Casas contributed to this report. Mitchell Roland can be reached at mitchellr@spokesman.com.