Supreme Court Hearing on Nationwide Injunctions and Birthright Citizenship

SCOTUS heard arguments yesterday on President Trump’s birthright citizenship order. This case is huge because it isn’t just about birthright citizenship, it’s about the limits of how rogue judges can use nationwide injunctions.

The irony in all this is the highest court in the country has to rule on issues with a majority out of nine justices, but a district court judge can rule nationwide.

The hot take (and there are many) is that Amy Coney Barrett was a terrible, monumentally bad choice. Squandered.

Once again, we see the far-left SCOTUS block votes as one. The so-called “conservative” block of SCOTUS is anything but. It’s a nail-biter every time – never knowing if we are going to betrayed again.

I’m baffled by ACB hectoring here.

So executive branch has to not only abide by court orders but also must agree with underlying opinion? I’ve listened to this over and over and still don’t understand what she’s getting at.

Further—it’s literally SCOTUS’ job to assess and… https://t.co/iEdwMqC35u

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 15, 2025

Let’s turn to the insight of our best legal minds who following the hearing start to finish.

Related: JUDICIAL TYRANNY: Supreme Court to Hear Trump Challenge to Universal Injunctions by Radical, Rogue Judges

Legal expert Jonathan Turley:

The Supreme Court argument is now concluded and there was far more heat than light offered inside the courtroom…
..Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh seemed strongly in favor of the Administration. Roberts also made repeated points that seemed to support some of the arguments of the Administration, though it was not clear how he would vote…

..On the left, Kagan repeatedly strived to distinguish this case from her earlier objections to universal injunctions under the Biden Administration. She seemed solidly with Sotomayor and Jackson…

..That leaves Gorsuch and Barrett. Gorsuch has previously expressed criticism of universal injunctions but asked probing questions on both sides. Barrett seemed more accommodating in seeking a way to uphold universal injunctions…

…In other words, this could be a nail-biter. I think that the Administration still has an advantage in curtailing universal injunctions. However, I did not come away with the sense of a lock with a majority, particularly given Barrett’s questions. I am also unsure how Roberts and Gorsuch will play out on the details. Fortunately, we will likely know within a couple of weeks.

“On the left, Kagan repeatedly strived to distinguish this case from her earlier objections to universal injunctions under the Biden Administration.”

If you don’t have consistency, you don’t have integrity.

THE IRONY!🚨

In 2022, Elena Kagan, a LIBERAL Supreme Court justice, says "It CAN'T be right that one District Judge can stop a nationwide policy in it's tracks"

OH?! You mean how District Judges have issued 17 nationwide orders stopping Trump's policies in their tracks? 🤡 pic.twitter.com/sq2J2Vulgz

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 15, 2025

 

Jackson continues to demonstrate her ignorance and lack of legal knowledge. She is not qualified to serve as a Chief Justice.

Kentaji Brown Jackson just argued that nationwide injunctions by district court judges to block Trump’s agenda “is actually what we would want.”

Completely insane. pic.twitter.com/Mj6z3Sh0Eo

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) May 15, 2025

Margo Cleveland wrote:

THREAD on broad thoughts from hearing: My “gut” is that SCOTUS will follow what I call the Kavanaugh approach to nationwide injunctions and hold that there are rules & those must be followed and those rules require class certification to provide relief beyond Plaintiffs.

Couple preliminary points: The argument is NOT about the merits of the birthright citizenship case. You may hear reference to the APA or the Administrative Procedure Act. This case does NOT concern APA.

Justice Kavanaugh (echoed by several other justices) stressed that exigent circumstances purportedly justifying nationwide injunctions don’t exist because courts can grant TRO/Preliminary Injunctions for putative classes (meaning class action lawsuits not yet certified).

Given that reality, Justice Kavanaugh suggested the argument that we need nationwide injunctions collapses. And as he stressed couple times, there is a rule & those rules must be followed. If you listened to the argument, Justice Kavanaugh’s approach came off balanced & sane.

Of course, merely prediction & I could be wrong. But I’d add while argument may not have seemed to go well for gov. b/c justices (including originalist) were trying to box in Trump Ad. to understand position, I don’t think that will change decision on nationwide injunction.

For instance, Trump Adm. refused to say you could have a class action in this case, which seemed unsettling to some of justices, but that remedy shouldn’t matter on question of whether you can have nationwide injunctions & the originalist know that.

Trump Administration also refused to agree to follow circuit precedent in every situation, which ruffled feathers but again, doesn’t matter from perspective of whether nationwide injunctions are permissible under either statute that gave jurisdiction in equity or Art. III.

The Left side of Court also raised concerns over what they perceived as Trump violating clearly established precedent, which of course it isn’t, but beyond that Trump Administration unequivocally stated it would abide by SCOTUS decision on merits even if not in class action.

rom the argument, it might also have seemed as if SCOTUS would decide to consider merits first, but I do not believe a majority will do so because the Court granted application on narrow question of nationwide injunctions & this case presents clearest vehicle to do so.

So bottom line is I believe SCOTUS will hold no jurisdiction to enter nationwide injunctions under federal statute that establishes jurisdiction of lower courts. I believe they will avoid whether Article III would allow Congress to grant such authority to lower courts.

The other option is to narrow nationwide injunction’s use, which is possible, but I don’t think a majority will go this approach because the lower court’s don’t seem to take the hint and a bright line is more practical. The remaining issue, though, remedy to states.

In case of States suing, my understanding is it wasn’t technically a nationwide injunction but rather a remedy supposedly gears to provide complete relief to the States. SCOTUS could remand that with guidance of what type of remedy is allowed for a State.

Two final points: We already have had 5 justices criticize nationwide injunctions, which IMNSHO will trump any concern over Trump. And finally, as several justices noted, eliminating nationwide injunctions isn’t going to address problem of what district judges are doing.

SCOTUS Blog: The Supreme Court on Thursday was divided over whether a federal judge has the power to block President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship while the case moves through the lower courts. The Trump administration told the justices it should be able to at least partly implement the order. Although several justices in recent years have expressed skepticism about so-called nationwide injunctions, which bar the government from enforcing a law or policy anywhere in the country, during more than two hours of oral arguments, it was not clear whether a majority of the justices were ready to bar such injunctions altogether (SCOTUS Blog).

JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: “So, we survived until the 1960s without universal injunctions?” SOLICITOR GENERAL JOHN SAUER: “Correct. Those were rare in the 1960s, it exploded in 2007” (X).

Matt Margolis for PJ Media: Thomas’s concise question — “So we survived until the 1960s without universal injunction?” — hit the heart of the issue. With that simple question, he challenged the idea that such drastic judicial remedies were historically essential, even during one of the most tumultuous and morally urgent periods in American history: the civil rights era, a time when federal courts began issuing broader remedies to dismantle Jim Crow laws and enforce desegregation.  In other words, if the courts managed to confront segregation, enforce Brown v. Board of Education, and make tremendous progress for civil rights without needing to impose blanket nationwide injunctions, then why are they supposedly necessary today over what amounts to policy disputes? In just one sentence, Thomas accomplished what pages of legal briefs failed to do. He exposed the historical and constitutional weakness of the left’s favorite legal tactic (PJ Media).

Jan Crawford of CBS News admits that the President’s case against nationwide injunctions has merit: “The Obama and Biden administrations opposed national injunctions arguing judges in conservative states like Texas, where opponents chose to file lawsuits, were dictating national policy,” she said, quipping, “Now, the shoe is on the other foot.” Crawford even seemed to hint that the injunctions against Trump’s polices were politically motivated and getting worse. “A CBS news analysis of more than 300 lawsuits filed against the Trump administration found that outside of Washington, D.C., the most are in liberal Massachusetts, followed by Maryland, California, and New York,” she stated. “Now, the use of these sweeping injunctions has been growing significantly in recent years. There have been 39 of them so far blocking President Trump’s policies in his second term” (Newsbusters).