Trump knew that the Supreme Court would rule against his executive order scrapping the Constitution’s right to birthright citizenship. But the case was really a Trojan Horse to get something more.
Three lower courts had issued injunctions blocking Trump’s executive order as unconstitutional. At that time, the injunctions were universal, meaning they prohibited federal immigration officials from enforcing the executive order anywhere in the United States.
On June 27, 2025, Trump asked the Supreme Court to limit the broad scope of the injunctions against him, arguing that individual district judges lacked the authority to issue universal injunctions and that their injunctions could bind only the parties covered by the litigation.
The Court accommodated him and limited the scope of the preliminary injunctions to parties covered by the litigation. It also stayed the three injunctions that blocked Trump’s executive order and sent them back to the lower courts to reconsider the scope of their holdings in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of the executive order challenging birthright citizenship at that time, even though every court that had considered the issue had found it to be unconstitutional.
The administration is now free to enforce executive orders that were held unconstitutional or otherwise illegal against people throughout the rest of the country who were not protected by the injunction, including those who can’t afford legal representation or join in lawsuits seeking relief.
Instead of a single decision avoiding a nation-wide illegal policy, civil rights organizations and other plaintiffs must file multiple repetitive cases in different federal districts. Even then, the administration can enforce its illegal policies in districts where judges have not yet ruled.
Nationwide injunctions have stifled many of Trump’s illegal efforts through executor orders, such as cutting domestic financial assistance and freezing foreign aid to name a few. Unthinkably, most injunctions against Trump’s illegal executive orders no longer apply beyond the limits imposed by the Supreme Court.
The results of limiting the scope of injunctions also seem unworkable. First, it will give Trump the choice of where to and, more importantly, where not to enforce his unconstitutional executive orders. That will open the door to requiring donations to his campaign to accommodate the interests of different parties.
Tragically, this is a part of a pattern of the Supreme Court majority Justices abdicating their Constitutional duty to act as a check and balance on the President.
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