by WorldTribune Staff, May 15, 2025 Real World News

The Supreme Court on Thursday began hearing a case centered on President Donald Trump’s executive order which limits birthright citizenship and the power of lower courts to rule against the executive branch.

Activists who oppose President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order demonstrate outside the Supreme Court on Thursday. / Video Image

The high court agreed in April to hear the case, which centers on three lower courts that issued national injunctions earlier this year blocking Trump’s executive order which reinterprets the 14th Amendment to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. if their mother is unlawfully present or temporarily in the country, and if their father is neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident at the time of birth.

Trump’s action remains on hold nationwide pending Supreme Court intervention.

The high court in this week’s case is taking up emergency appeals filed by the Trump Administration asking to be able to enforce the executive order in most of the country, at least while lawsuits over the order proceed.

The constitutionality of the order is not before the court just yet. Instead, the justices are looking at potentially limiting the authority of individual judges to issue rulings that apply throughout the United States. These are known as nationwide, or universal, injunctions.

Should the Supreme Court rule on the powers of district judges to rule against the executive branch, it would affect more than 310 federal lawsuits that have challenged White House actions since Trump’s second term began on Jan. 20.

Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social:

Big case today in the United States Supreme Court. Birthright Citizenship was not meant for people taking vacations to become permanent Citizens of the United States of America, and bringing their families with them, all the time laughing at the “SUCKERS” that we are! The United States of America is the only Country in the World that does this, for what reason, nobody knows — But the drug cartels love it! We are, for the sake of being politically correct, a STUPID Country but, in actuality, this is the exact opposite of being politically correct, and it is yet another point that leads to the dysfunction of America. Birthright Citizenship is about the babies of slaves. As conclusive proof, the Civil War ended in 1865, the Bill went to Congress less than a year later, in 1866, and was passed shortly after that. It had nothing to do with Illegal Immigration for people wanting to SCAM our Country, from all parts of the World, which they have done for many years. It had to do with Civil War results, and the babies of slaves who our politicians felt, correctly, needed protection. Please explain this to the Supreme Court of the United States. Again, remember, the Civil War ended in 1865, and the Bill goes to Congress in 1866 — We didn’t have people pouring into our Country from all over South America, and the rest of the World. It wasn’t even a subject. What we had were the BABIES OF SLAVES. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Good luck with this very important case. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!

Remember, it all started right after the Civil War ended, it had nothing to do with current day Immigration Policy!

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, arguing for the president, said under the Constitution’s Article III, which sets up the federal courts, district judges’ rulings should be restricted only on the plaintiffs in front of them.

“It is a feature, not a bug, of Article III that the courts grant relief to the people that are in front of them,” he said.

During Thursday’s proceedings, Justice Samuel Alito said: “The practical problem is there are 680 district court judges. Sometimes they’re wrong, and all Article III judges are vulnerable to an occupational disease, which is the disease of thinking ‘I am right.’ ”

Justice Clarence Thomas said the courts operated for nearly two centuries without needing to issue such broad rulings.

“We survived until the 1960s without universal injunctions,” he said.

Sauer pointed out that Trump faced 64 injunctions in his first term, Joe Biden saw 22 against his policies, and Trump has already seen 40 in less than four months of his second term.

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said she recognizes a problem with lower courts increasingly flexing powers to shut down a president’s agenda, but she worried about taking the judges off the field, particularly in cases like birthright citizenship.

“There are all kinds of abuses of nationwide injunctions, but I think that the question that this case presents is that if one thinks it’s quite clear that the executive order is illegal, how does one get to that result and what time frame, on your set of rules, without the possibility of a nationwide injunction?” Kagan asked Sauer.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said if the government prevails it would trigger a flood of lawsuits as anyone who wants protection would have to get a lawyer and sue on his or her own.

“Your argument seems to turn our justice system into a catch-me-if-you-can kind of regime from the standpoint of the executive, where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights,” Jackson said.

Human Events editor Jack Posobiec noted in a social media post: “Here’s a fun idea: Ask a liberal if birthright citizenship should apply to white South Africans. And watch what happens next.”

So far, the Supreme Court arguments about anchor babies is focusing mostly on the Trump administration’s request to end universal injunctions by low-level courts. Justice Thomas injects a helpful reality check:

“We survived until the 1960s without universal injunctions.” pic.twitter.com/wZGLserEPU

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 15, 2025

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  Moment of truth at SCOTUS: Birthright citizenship and the executive powers of district judges, WorldTribune.com

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