President Trump on Friday said the Supreme Court’s decision knocking down nationwide injunctions in a birthright citizenship case would give him full range to proceed with his agenda, particularly on immigration.
The court in a 6-3 ruling said judges in three separate cases when too far in issuing nationwide injunctions.
“Thanks to this decision, we can now properly file to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship, ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding, stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries and numerous other priorities of the American people,” Trump said at a press conference.
He added, “we have so many of them. I have a whole list.”
Trump also railed against “radical left judges” who he said had used nationwide injunctions to “overrule the rightful powers of the president” to stop illegal immigration.
“It was a grave threat to democracy, frankly, and instead of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation,” Trump said.
Trump also argued nationwide injunctions were “a colossal abuse of power” that allowed a federal judge to “dictate the law for the entire nation.”
“In practice, this meant that if any one of the nearly 700 federal judges disagree with the policy of the duly elected president of the United States, he or she could block that policy from going into effect, or at least delay it for many years tied up in the court system,” Trump said.
Friday’s ruling does not resolve whether Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional, but the justices narrowed the lower court rulings to only block Trump’s order as applied to the 22 Democratic-led states, expectant mothers and immigration organizations that are suing.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the administration is going to “follow the law” when it comes to implementing the birthright order when asked whether there were any plans to try to make it effective immediately.
“We’re going to follow the law, we’re going to make those decisions, and we’re going to do what’s right in the bounds of the law,” she said.
The Trump administration can now resume developing guidance to implement the order, though it must wait 30 days before attempting to deny citizenship.
Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully butted heads in dueling opinions on the decision, with Jackson and two other liberal judges dissenting. Jackson wrote that the decision “gives the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate.”
Barrett sharply rebuked Jackson’s rhetoric as a “startling line of attack” and claimed her argument was at odds with centuries of precedent and the Constitution.
“These injunctions — known as ‘universal injunctions’ — likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,” Barrett wrote for the court’s six Republican-appointed justices.
Trump thanked Barrett, as well as the other Republican-appointed justices, in the press conference on Friday. Trump appointed Barret along with two other members of the six-justice majority.
“I’m grateful to the Supreme Court for stepping in and solving this very big and complex problem,” he said.
When asked about backlash towards Barrett from some of Trump’s most fervent supporters over an immigration case in April, the president said he wasn’t aware of ire towards her.
“I don’t know about that. I just have great respect for her,” he said.