OAN Staff Gabriella Sable
9:50 AM – Friday, June 27, 2025
On Friday, the United States Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Trump administration, allowing it to reel in a series of lower court injunctions against President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship. The Court’s decision limits the scope of those injunctions, permitting them to apply only to the individuals or groups who actually filed suit.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion, writing that universal injunctions by district court judges exceed their authority given by Congress.
“Government’s applications for partial stays of the preliminary injunctions are granted,” Barrett wrote. “But only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.”
“The bottom line? The universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history,” Barrett added.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed the dissenting opinion with Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan joining.
Sotomayor wrote that Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional and therefore believes that a universal injunction should be allowed.
“Yet the Order’s patent unlawfulness reveals the gravity of the majority’s error and underscores why equity supports universal injunctions as appropriate remedies in this kind of case,” Sotomayor wrote.
The administration had appealed to the nation’s highest court after federal judges in Maryland, Seattle, and Boston issued holds on the executive order restricting birthright citizenship, all of which were upheld on appeal. Those judges argued that the order was inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s established interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
The case did not ask the court to decide on the legality of birthright citizenship but instead helps to limit federal district judges from interfering with the president’s executive authority.
Counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, Paul Kamenar, wrote in a statement to One America News that the ruling means challengers to an executive order will now need to file lawsuits in multiple states or pursue a class action in order to achieve a nationwide impact.
“What this means for now is that those challenging the Executive Order will have to bring court challenges in other states,” Kamenar explains. “Although the Court also noted that the parties can file class actions which can have a nationwide effect. The three liberal justices filed a strong dissent that the majority’s decision will have a patchwork quilt effect of different rulings across the country.”
Kamenar asserts that this is a win for both political parties.
“However, this decision favors both political parties since a conservative judge can no longer issue a nationwide injunction against a regulation or Executive Order from a Democratic,” argued Kamenar. “As a Texas judge last year striking down nationwide the FDA rule approving medisfristone birth control opinion.”
“The majority did leave open the possibility that if the states win an injunction, it may be possible that since their citizens travel from state to state, a broader injunction might be appropriate,” said Kamenar.
Kamenar noted that the constitutionality of the 47th President’s executive order on birthright citizenship will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court and the earlier that decision comes, the better.
“At the end of the day, this underlying issue of whether the Executive Order is constitutional will be decided by the Supreme Court,” Kamenar wrote. “And the sooner the better to resolve the matter instead of having local judges making individual rulings.”
Trump wrote on Truth Social that this was a huge win by the Supreme Court.
“GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court,” Trump wrote. “Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard. It had to do with the babies of slaves (same year!), not the SCAMMING of our Immigration process.”
The decision came on the final day before the Supreme Court’s summer break.
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