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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nUS supreme court<\/a> justices on Thursday took issue with Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s attempt to sidestep the constitution to limit birthright citizenship, a case that, while technically about immigration, could reshape presidential power and the role of federal courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trio of cases before the court stem from the president\u2019s January executive order<\/a> that would deny US citizenship to babies born on American soil if their parents aren\u2019t citizens or permanent residents. The plan is likely to be ultimately struck down, as it directly contradicts the 14th amendment, which grants citizenship to \u201call persons born or naturalized in the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Sonia Sotomayor said early in the arguments that Trump\u2019s executive order violates four supreme court precedents, while D John Sauer, US solicitor general arguing on behalf of the administration, said that Trump\u2019s order was \u201cprotecting the meaning and value of American citizenship\u201d.But Trump\u2019s legal team isn\u2019t asking the supreme court to rule on whether his policy is constitutional, and very little of the arguments focused on the immigration issues at the heart of Trump\u2019s order. Instead, they are challenging whether lower court judges should be able to block presidential orders nationwide \u2013 a move that could overall weaken judicial checks on executive power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three federal judges have blocked the policy nationwide, including Deborah Boardman, a US district judge who ruled that \u201cno court in the country has ever endorsed the president\u2019s interpretation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Elena Kagan pointed out that the government has lost<\/a> every case about Trump\u2019s birthright citizenship order, and questioned why the administration decided to appeal to the supreme court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the justice department argues the \u201cnationwide injunctions\u201d unfairly tie the president\u2019s hands. \u201cThese injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the\u00a0Trump administration<\/a>,\u201d the department wrote in a March filing. The administration is asking for the scope of the injunctions to be narrowed, so they only apply to the people, organizations or states that sued.If Trump prevails, his administration could potentially enforce his desired citizenship policy in parts of the country where specific courts haven\u2019t blocked it \u2013 creating different citizenship rules in different states while legal challenges continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The supreme court\u2019s conservative majority, which includes three Trump appointees, has previously signaled skepticism about nationwide injunctions. Justice Neil Gorsuch called the issue a \u201cquestion of great significance\u201d requiring the court\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Thursday, Justice Clarence Thomas appeared to question nationwide injunctions, saying that the country \u201csurvived until the 1960s without universal injunctions\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Critics warn that limiting judges\u2019 power to block policies nationwide would force people to file thousands of individual lawsuits to protect their rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe ones who can\u2019t afford to go to court, they\u2019re the ones who are going to lose,\u201d Kagan said. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned how the government can require every person affected to hire a lawyer, asking whether that scheme was \u201cremotely consistent with the rule of law\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kagan also asked Sauer to assume that the executive order is unconstitutional and to explain how courts will get to the end result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDoes every single person that is affected by this EO have to bring their own suit? Are there alternatives? How long does it take? How do we get to the result that there is a single rule of citizenship that is the rule that we\u2019ve historically applied rather than the rule the EO would have us do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeremy Feigenbaum, the New Jersey solicitor general, argued the government\u2019s approach \u201cwould require citizenship to vary based on the state in which you\u2019re born, or even turn on or off when someone crosses state lines\u201d \u2013 creating what he called \u201cserious and unanswerable questions\u201d for both federal and state authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSince the 14th amendment, our country has never allowed American citizenship to vary based on the state in which someone resides,\u201d he said.When questioned about the historical basis for nationwide injunctions, Feigenbaum acknowledged they should be \u201creserved for narrow circumstances\u201d but insisted this case clearly meets that threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justices pressed Sauer on whether people can bring class-action lawsuits instead of seeking nationwide injunctions. Sauer responded that emergency class status could be granted but courts typically grant relief to the people who have sued and not to other people as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the end of March, Trump had faced at least 17 nationwide injunctions since returning to office in January, according to the Congressional Research Service<\/a>. His first term saw 86 such rulings \u2013 far more than other presidents including Joe Biden, who saw 28; Barack Obama, who saw 12; and George W Bush, who saw six. Trump has also faced at least 328 lawsuits nationwide as of 1 May, with judges blocking his actions more than 200 times, according to a Bloomberg analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The administration has said that universal injunctions have prevented the executive branch \u201cfrom performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hundreds of protesters congregated outside the supreme court during the arguments Thursday for a rally spearheaded by the immigration group Casa. Demonstrators, chanting slogans in English and Spanish, held up placards saying: \u201cBirthright citizenship isn\u2019t a conditional privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andrea Flores, the vice-president of immigration policy at Forward US, told the Guardian that she fears a \u201ca patchwork system\u201d whereby birthright citizenship would be accepted in some states but not in others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat would create a different scheme, where, in one state, say, in South Carolina, if you\u2019re the child of an immigrant, you\u2019re not a citizen, but in North Carolina and you\u2019re the child of an immigrant, you are a citizen. So it would create a patchwork citizenship process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The text of the 14th amendment is \u201cclear and settled law\u201d, she added, calling the legal underpinning of Trump\u2019s executive order \u201ca fringe theory\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three separate lawsuits have been consolidated into one challenge before the court on Thursday, which came via an emergency appeal in the court\u2019s so-called \u201cshadow docket\u201d. The court\u2019s ruling is expected by early July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justices began hearing cases stemming from president\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4676,4732,4740],"class_list":["post-5235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-court","tag-supreme","tag-wary"],"yoast_head":"\nReprinted from The Guardian<\/strong><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"