May 13th, the Supreme’s announced they would hear oral arguments on if federal district court judges could block a President’s orders nationwide.
Today’s the day they hear those oral arguments.
The blocked order in question is President Shitshow’s EO to end birthright citizenship.
The justices will hear oral arguments this morning in three emergency appeals over orders blocking President Donald Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship. Tune in shortly after 10 a.m. EDT. https://t.co/hRwKsZ3cI8
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) May 15, 2025
NPR (05/15/2025):
The Supreme Court hears historic arguments on Thursday, as the Trump administration seeks to challenge the constitutional provision that guarantees automatic citizenship to all babies born in the United States. And yet, the arguments are likely to focus primarily on a different question entirely, a legal question on nationwide injunctions that could make it much more difficult and time-consuming to bring challenges to all of Trump’s legal policies, not just this one.
[snip]
The Amendment says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
NPR (05/15/2025).
They go into detail on the legal challenge(s) the EO received; and rightly so, if an amendment can be ended by EO we are in bigger trouble than people realize.
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal claim has few supporters. At a program put on by the conservative Federalist society, writer Robert Verbruggen, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, referred to birthright citizenship as “a nutty policy we’re probably stuck with.” As he observed, the only way to undo the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright citizenship provision would be by enacting a constitutional amendment, a process that requires the House and Senate to approve by a two-thirds vote, and three-fourths of the states to do likewise — something that is unlikely in the current political climate.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration took its case to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis. But instead of asking the court to rule on the legality of Trump’s executive order, the administration focused its argument on the power of federal district court judges to do what they did here — rule against the administration on a nationwide basis.
NPR (05/15/2025).
There have been bipartisan complaints about nationwide injunctions; for me, if an EO has a national impact it seems logical that a court can block it nationally.
Ending birthright citizenship would impact all states not just one or two or just the federal government.
The Trump administration is not the first to complain about nationwide injunctions, observes University of Notre Dame law professor Samuel Bray. Over the last decade, both Democratic and Republican presidents have seen their policies stymied by these injunctions, which is why Bray calls these injunctions “a bipartisan scourge.”
And yet Bray admits that there is little wiggle room in terms of a principle that would weed out unjustified nationwide injunctions, and leave in place the ones that are needed to preserve the status quo and prevent ongoing harm from continuing. “I don’t find a lot of middle-ground options here,” he concedes.
NPR (05/15/2025).
Bray’s opinion found disagreement…
Georgetown University law professor Stephen Vladeck vehemently disagrees.
“To me that sort of gives up the game about what’s really at stake here because you’re saying, ‘Yes, we all know that this is unlawful and we’re [still] going to let the government put it into effect anyway,'” he says.
Indeed, he adds, the birthright citizenship case is a prime example of why nationwide injunctions are sometimes needed.
The question the court needs to think about, he says, “is whether it wants the federal courts to be able to block these policies on a nationwide basis or whether its going to require these cases to go plaintiff by plaintiff and district by district when you have an administration that will see that as a green light to try to manipulate the circumstances of other cases.”
And that, he maintains will end up deluging the court with more, not fewer, emergency cases.
NPR (05/15/2025).
This part of Bray’s speaking with NPR had me; I’m not sure what, annoyed with a bit of pissed of added in…
Professor Bray, however, thinks this case was filed at just the right time psychologically.
“You just have to imagine the justices are looking at the potential for the emergency docket consuming the entire summer when they’re supposed to be away,” he says.
The summer break is good for the justices, he observes. They get time to recharge, let tempers cool, and come back from vacation refreshed for a new term in the fall. But in laymen’s terms, given the huge number of emergency appeals about Trump administration policies, this could really screw up justices’ summer.
NPR (05/15/2025).
I don’t disagree that vacation is good and burnout is real. I take issue with they might make this decision based on how it might impact their summer plans.
NPR notes that this makes for a odd oral argument in which the Supreme’s might hear arguments for and against ending birthright citizenship via EO; but the heart of the matter is nation wide injunctions.
Chris Geidner self proclaimed Law Dork, will be there live to hear the arguments. I can say if he’s allowed to live tweet while there. But maybe…
I’m off to SCOTUS for this morning’s arguments over the nationwide scope of the injunctions blocking Trump’s birthright citizenship EO. Subscribe to Law Dork to keep up with and support my work. https://t.co/O0iCG6QxWc pic.twitter.com/xnHz9S8yF3
— Chris “Law Dork” Geidner (@chrisgeidner) May 15, 2025
The live audio only feed is from C-SPAN:
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