A lowly district court issued a One Man Universal decision stating that birthright citizenship was the law of the land and always would be, and then issuing various nationwide injunctions purporting to control President Trump's actions.
Trump appealed, but only on one part of the ruling: The arrogance of a lowly district court judge, who only has jurisdiction over the area (the literal jurisdiction) he is seated in, issuing what he purports to be nationwide "universal" injunctions. (An injunction is a judicial order forbidding someone from doing something.)
Nationwide injunctions are highly controversial, especially by lowly district court judges, because they are at the very, very bottom of the federal judicial system, and yet they keep arrogating to themselves plenary power to dictate the elected government actions.
Even more importantly, district courts only have jurisdiction over the small, um, jurisdiction they're appointed to judge cases in. In other words, a district court judge from southern Massachusetts has the power to rule on cases in southern Massachusetts. But these low-level bureaucrats keep claiming to have nationwide or "universal" jurisdiction, and instead of limiting their rulings' effect to just the jurisdiction they are seated in, they claim they can rule for the entire country.
These rulings have long been considered out-of-bounds -- including by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who argued against universal injunctions issued by district courts when she was Obama's Solicitor General. She has a different opinion now, of course.
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
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.
NYT legal reporter Adam Liptak sums this up with fair accuracy:
The justices have been struggling with two contrary impulses. Many are troubled by injunctions issued by individual federal judges that block executive branch initiatives nationwide. But many of them are also troubled by the executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship and frustrated by the difficulty of reaching the merits, as the Trump administration has only appealed on the first point.New Jersey's lawyer may have offered a middle ground, arguing that this is the rare case in which nationwide relief is needed because it is the only way to grant complete relief to the more than 20 plaintiff states.
@ShipwreckedCrew predicts the justices may split, and uphold the universal injunction only as to the ban of Trump's order reversing so-called "birthright citizenship," but setting up oversight/checks-and-balances for universal injunctions in all other cases. The "wise Latina" Sotomayor kept Asking Statements of the Solicitor General. She would "Ask" a Declaration and then cut off the Solicitor General before he could respond. Even Roberts eventually had enough of her, and interrupted her interrupting to tell her that he actually wanted to hear the Solicitor General's answer to her statement.
Martin Harry
@MartinHarryFL
Listening to the birthright citizenship oral argument at the US Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor continues to be argumentative, ask questions without allowing a response and monopolizes the Court's time. Chief Justice Roberts had had enough and cut her off. Later, he directly contradicts her belief that Supreme Court review takes 4-5 years, even in emergency cases.
Fox:
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts reined in Justice Sonia Sotomayor during argument over birthright citizenship and nationwide court injunctions on Thursday.
Sotomayor dominated questioning for several minutes at the outset of Thursday's argument after taking over from Justice Clarence Thomas. She pressed U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer for President Donald Trump's administration on several points relating to the authority for federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions, often speaking over the lawyer and interrupting him.
Sotomayor argued that Trump's order invalidating birthright citizenship violated four Supreme Court precedents, and that it was justified for a federal judge to grant an injunction against such a controversial order.
"You are claiming that not just the Supreme Court, that both the Supreme Court and no lower court, can stop an executive from universally violating holdings by this court," Sotomayor said.
"We are not claiming that because we're conceding that there could be an appropriate case only in class only," Sauer said.
"But I hear that--," Sotomayor said, beginning to interrupt Sauer.
"Can I hear the rest of his answer?" Roberts then interjected.