We knew it would likely be one of the last decisions issued by the Supreme Court this term, given that it arises from the court’s “Emergency Docket” and was the last case argued before the justices in mid-May. But to cap off the 2024 term, the court has issued an opinion in CASA v. Trump, which is actually three consolidated cases involving challenges to President Donald Trump’s executive order regarding birthright citizenship.
In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court granted the government’s applications to partially stay the district court’s nationwide injunctions in the birthright citizenship cases, noting that universal injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.” The caveat here is that the applications are granted “only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.” (The three dissenters were, as one might expect, the three liberal justices: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.)
The key to the court’s decision appears to be summed up thusly:
When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.
Additionally, the court has instructed the district courts to “move expeditiously to ensure that, with respect to each plaintiff, the injunctions comport with this rule and otherwise comply with principles of equity.”
As we’ve discussed previously, the issue before the court here wasn’t the merits of the executive order or birthright citizenship. Nor was the court asked to decide here whether nationwide injunctions might be appropriate in other contexts. Rather, the issue before the court was whether it is appropriate for district court judges to issue nationwide or universal injunctions in this context, although the language contained in the opinion certainly is encouraging as to the broader context.
The one thing I was confidently able to predict following oral argument in the case was that whatever the decision would be, it would not be unanimous. It was abundantly clear from the justices’ questioning that the liberal and conservative wings of the court were not on the same page. What wasn’t clear was how the justices who tend more to the middle — particularly Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — might come down.
Well, now we know.
I shared some additional thoughts following the argument as to what the implications of this decision might be as to the viability of birthright citizenship itself and these universal injunctions in other contexts:
The underlying merits are not a slam dunk — in either direction. There are strong legal arguments on both sides of the issue (and have been for decades). And keep in mind — there’s a difference between what the constitutional language at issue provides and what many believe the policy should be. It is beyond obvious that the liberal wing of the court will — when and if the merits are reached — find birthright citizenship firmly enshrined in the 14th Amendment. (Sotomayor and Kagan both essentially said just that.) It is also fairly clear that at least two of the court’s conservatives (i.e., Thomas and Alito) will not.
It’s the four in the middle who remain the wildcards on that. And because the merits argument is somewhat iffy, the administration’s decision to run the nationwide or universal injunction question up the flagpole in this context is risky. In other words, if the majority of the justices are dubious about the administration winning on the merits and Trump’s EO on this issue being held lawful, they may be hard-pressed to agree that limiting the lower court rulings to only the parties before the courts and essentially creating a patchwork of citizenship here but not there is justified. The understandable concern is that this will result in utter chaos in terms of the practical application of the rulings. Thus, this situation would arguably lend itself to a universal injunction (while others may not).
On the other hand, if the administration is able to win on the nationwide injunction issue even in a case where they may not ultimately succeed on the merits, that makes their overall challenge of the mechanism (in multiple contexts) that much stronger. Or, as our friend Bill Shipley notes, “High risk-high reward” tactical decision.
No doubt there will be further analysis to come on this one, but this is a solid win for the Trump administration.
