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Supreme Court could block Trump’s birthright citizenship order
Legal Topics |
2025/05/15 19:02
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The Supreme Court seemed intent Thursday on keeping a block on President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship while looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders.
It was unclear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about would happen if the Trump administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally.
The justices heard arguments in the Trump administration’s emergency appeals over lower court orders that have kept the citizenship restrictions on hold across the country. Nationwide, or universal, injunctions have emerged as an important check on Trump’s efforts to remake the government and a mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies.
Judges have issued 40 nationwide injunctions since Trump began his second term in January, Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court at the start of more than two hours of arguments.
Birthright citizenship is among several issues, many related to immigration, that the administration has asked the court to address on an emergency basis.
The justices are also considering the Trump administration’s pleas to end humanitarian parole for more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and to strip other temporary legal protections from another 350,000 Venezuelans. The administration remains locked in legal battles over its efforts to swiftly deport people accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term that would deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are in the country illegally or temporarily.
The order conflicts with a Supreme Court decision from 1898 that held that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment made citizens of all children born on U.S. with narrow exceptions that are not at issue in this case.
States, immigrants and rights group sued almost immediately, and lower courts quickly barred enforcement of the order while the lawsuits proceed. The court’s liberal justices seemed firmly in support of the lower court rulings that found the changes to citizenship that Trump wants to make would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years.
Birthright citizenship is an odd case to use to scale back nationwide injunctions, Justice Elena Kagan said. “Every court has ruled against you,” she told Sauer.
But if the government wins on today’s arguments, it could still enforce the order against people who haven’t sued, Kagan said. “All of those individuals are going to win. And the ones who can’t afford to go to court, they’re the ones who are going to lose,” she said
Several conservative justices who might be open to limiting nationwide injunctions also wanted to know the practical effects of such a decision as well as how quickly the court could reach a final decision on the Trump executive order. |
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Trump Seeks Supreme Court Approval to End Protections for Venezuelans
Legal Business |
2025/05/13 02:02
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The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to strip temporary legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to being deported.
The Justice Department asked the high court to put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired last month.
The status allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife.
A federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration’s request.
President Donald Trump’s administration has moved aggressively to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the country, including ending TPS for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians. TPS is granted in 18-month increments.
The emergency appeal to the high court came the same day a federal judge in Texas ruled illegal the administration’s efforts to deport Venezuelans under an 18th-century wartime law. The cases are not related.
The protections had been set to expire April 7, but U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ordered a pause on those plans. He found that the expiration threatened to severely disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and could cost billions in lost economic activity.
Chen, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, found the government hadn’t shown any harm caused by keeping the program alive.
But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration that Chen’s order impermissibly interferes with the administration’s power over immigration and foreign affairs.
In addition, Sauer told the justices, people affected by ending the protected status might have other legal options to try to remain in the country because the “decision to terminate TPS is not equivalent to a final removal order.”
Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.
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Jury begins deliberating in UK trial of men accused of felling Sycamore Gap tree
Legal Business |
2025/05/09 20:01
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Jurors began deliberating Thursday in the case of two men charged with cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree that once stood along the ancient Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, have pleaded not guilty to two counts each of criminal damage. The former friends each testified that they were at their separate homes that night and not involved.
Justice Christina Lambert told jurors in Newcastle Crown Court to take as long as they need to reach unanimous verdicts in the trial that began April 28.
The tree was not Britain’s biggest or oldest, but it was prized for its picturesque setting along the ancient wall built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122 to protect the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire.
The tree was long known to locals but achieved international fame in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.” It sat symmetrically between two hills along the historic wall and was a draw for tourists, landscape photographers and those taking selfies for social media.
Prosecutors said the tree’s value exceeded 620,000 pounds ($830,000) and damage to the wall, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was assessed at 1,100 pounds. Andrew Gurney, a lawyer for Carruthers, said Graham’s story didn’t add up and he was projecting his guilt on his former friend.
“Is that a plausible chain of events or is that the desperate story of a man caught out?” Gurney said.
Wright mocked the duo’s defense, saying common sense and a trail of evidence should lead jurors to convict them for their “moronic mission.”
Prosecutors showed grainy video from Graham’s phone of the tree being cut down — a video sent shortly afterward to Carruthers’ phone. Metadata showed it was taken at the tree’s location in Northumberland National Park. Data showed Graham’s Range Rover had traveled there.
Wright said he couldn’t say who cut the tree and who held the phone, but the two were the only people in the world who had the video on their devices.
Text and voice messages exchanged the following day between Carruthers and Graham captured their excitement as the story went viral.
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Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans from South Texas under the Alien Enemies Act
Headline Legal News |
2025/05/04 03:02
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A federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans from South Texas under an 18th-century wartime law and said President Donald Trump’s invocation of it was “unlawful.”
U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. is the first judge to rule that the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used against people who, the Republican administration claims, are gang members invading the United States. Rodriguez said he wouldn’t interfere with the government’s right to deport people in the country illegally through other means, but it could not rely on the 227-year-old law to do so.
“Neither the Court nor the parties question that the Executive Branch can direct the detention and removal of aliens who engage in criminal activity in the United States,” wrote Rodriguez, who was nominated by Trump in 2018. But, the judge said, “the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms.”
In March, Trump issued a proclamation claiming that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the U.S. He said he had special powers to deport immigrants, identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual court proceedings.
“The Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” Rodriguez wrote.
In an interview on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance said the administration will be “aggressively appealing” the ruling and others that hem in the president’s deportation power.
“The judge doesn’t make that determination, whether the Alien Enemies Act can be deployed,” Vance said. “I think the president of the United States is the one who determines whether this country is being invaded.”
The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said in a statement the judge had made clear “what we all knew to be true: The Trump administration illegally used the Alien Enemies Act to deport people without due process.”
The Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before in U.S. history, most recently during World War II, when it was cited to intern Japanese-Americans.
The proclamation triggered a flurry of litigation as the administration tried to ship migrants it claimed were gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Rodriguez’s ruling is significant because it is the first formal permanent injunction against the administration using the AEA and contends the president is misusing the law. “Congress never meant for this law to be used in this manner,” said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case, in response to the ruling.
Rodriguez agreed, noting that the provision has only been used during the two World Wars and the War of 1812. Trump claimed Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of the Venezuelan government, but Rodriguez found that the activities the administration accused it of did not amount to an invasion or “predatory incursion,” as the statute requires.
“The Proclamation makes no reference to and in no manner suggests that a threat exists of an organized, armed group of individuals entering the United States at the direction of Venezuela to conquer the country or assume control over a portion of the nation,” Rodriguez wrote. “Thus, the Proclamation’s language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of ‘invasion’ for purposes of the AEA.”
If the administration appeals, it would go first to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is among the nation’s most conservative appeals courts and it also has ruled against what it saw as overreach on immigration matters by both the Obama and Biden administrations. In those cases, Democratic administrations had sought to make it easier for immigrants to remain in the U.S. |
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Judge blocks parts of Trump’s overhaul of US elections
Legal Topics |
2025/04/25 14:58
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A judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run, including adding a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.
The decision is a setback for President Donald Trump, who has argued the requirement is needed to restore public confidence in elections. But the judge allowed other parts of Trump’s sweeping executive order on U.S. elections to go forward for now, including a directive to tighten mail ballot deadlines around the country.
Trump’s March executive order overhauling how U.S. elections are run prompted swift lawsuits from the League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Women Voters Education Fund, the Democratic National Committee and others, who called it unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington sided with voting rights groups and Democrats, saying that the Constitution gives the power to regulate federal elections to states and Congress — not the president. She noted federal lawmakers are currently working on their own legislation to require proof of citizenship to vote.
In a 120-page decision on Thursday, she said the plaintiffs had proven that the proof-of-citizenship requirement would cause their clients irreparable harm and go against the public interest, while the government had offered “almost no defense of the President’s order on the merits.”
Accordingly, she granted a preliminary injunction to stop the citizenship requirement from moving forward while the lawsuit plays out.
The judge also blocked part of the Republican president’s order requiring public assistance enrollees to have their citizenship assessed before getting access to the federal voter registration form.
But she denied other requests from a group of Democratic plaintiffs, including refusing to block Trump’s order to require all mailed ballots to be received by Election Day nationwide. She also did not touch Trump’s order to open certain databases to billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to allow it to review state voter lists to search for noncitizens. The judge said those arguments brought by Democrats were either premature or should be brought by states instead.
The plaintiffs had argued Trump’s proof-of-citizenship requirement violated the Constitution’s so-called Elections Clause, which gives states and Congress the authority to determine how elections are run.
They also argued that Trump’s order asserts power that he does not have over an independent agency. That agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, sets voluntary voting system guidelines and maintains the federal voter registration form.
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Judge bars Trump from denying federal funds to ‘sanctuary’ cities
Court News |
2025/04/21 21:52
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A federal judge in California on Thursday barred the Trump administration from denying or conditioning the use of federal funds to “sanctuary” jurisdictions, saying that portions of President Donald Trump’s executive orders were unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued the injunction sought by San Francisco and more than a dozen other municipalities that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
Orrick wrote that defendants are prohibited “from directly or indirectly taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds” and the administration must provide written notice of his order to all federal departments and agencies by Monday.
One executive order issued by Trump directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to withhold federal money to sanctuary jurisdictions. The second order directs every federal agency to ensure that payments to state and local governments do not “abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
At a hearing Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers argued that it was much too early for the judge to grant an injunction when the government had not taken any action to withhold specific amounts or to lay out conditions on specific grants.
But Orrick, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said this was essentially what government lawyers argued during Trump’s first term when the Republican issued a similar order.
“Their well-founded fear of enforcement is even stronger than it was in 2017,” Orrick wrote, citing the executive orders as well as directives from Bondi, other federal agencies and Justice Department lawsuits filed against Chicago and New York.
San Francisco successfully challenged the 2017 Trump order and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that the president exceeded his authority when he signed an executive order threatening to cut funding for “sanctuary cities.”
There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.
Leaders of sanctuary jurisdictions say their communities are safer because immigrants feel they can communicate with local police without fear of deportation. It is also a way for municipalities to focus their dollars on crime locally, they say.
Besides San Francisco and Santa Clara County, which includes a third plaintiff, the city of San José, there are 13 other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which include Seattle and King County, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota; New Haven, Connecticut; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Trump says he’s in ‘no rush’ to end tariffs as he meets with Italy’s Meloni
Court News |
2025/04/18 15:08
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President Donald Trump said Thursday he is in “no rush” to reach any trade deals because he views tariffs as making the United States wealthy. But he suggested while meeting with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni that it would be easy to find an agreement with the European Union and others.
Trump played down the likelihood of an accelerated timeline to wrap up deals, saying other countries “want to make deals more than I do.”
“We’re in no rush,” said Trump, hinting he has leverage because other countries want access to U.S. consumers.
Even though Trump has a warm relationship with Meloni, she was unable in their meeting to change his mind on tariffs.
“No, tariffs are making us rich. We were losing a lot of money under Biden,” Trump said of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. “And now that whole tide is turned.”
Trump is convinced that his devotion to tariffs will yield unprecedented wealth for his country even as the stock market has dropped, interest on U.S. debt has risen and CEOs are warning of price increases and job losses in what increasingly looks like a threat to the existing structure of the world economy.
A bond market panic was enough for Trump to partially pull back on his tariffs, causing him to pause his 20% import taxes on the EU for 90 days and charge a baseline 10% instead. Meloni’s visit showed the challenge faced even by leaders who enjoy a rapport with Trump.
After they met, Trump told reporters that trade talks were easier than other business negotiations such as mergers. He said he had spoken with Chinese officials about tariffs “a lot” and the amount of his import taxes could be influenced by China approving a sale of the social media site TikTok. He also seemed to contradict his previous statement Thursday morning about being in no rush to make trade deals “over the next three or four weeks.”
Even then, Trump showed no interest in fully severing his tariffs. “Tariff negotiations are actually simpler than everyone has said,” Trump said. “A number of people are going to pay that number or they’re going to decide to go elsewhere if there is such a place. There really is no elsewhere.”
Meloni had, in a sense, been “knighted” to represent the EU at a critical juncture in the fast-evolving trade war that has stoked recession fears. The U.S. administration has belittled its European counterparts for not doing enough on national security while threatening their economies with tariffs, sparking deep uncertainty about the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
She sought to portray the U.S. and Europe as natural allies in Western civilization and said it was important to “try to sit down and find solution” to tensions over trade and national security.
The EU is defending what it calls “the most important commercial relationship in the world,’’ with annual trade with the U.S. totaling 1.6 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion). It was unclear, based on Meloni’s public interactions with Trump, whether the premier has a clear understanding of what Trump wants as part of an agreement.
His administration has said its tariffs would enable trade negotiations that would box out China, the world’s dominant manufacturer. But Trump maintains that rivals and allies alike have taken advantage of the U.S. on trade, a position that has frustrated long-standing partners and raised concerns about whether Trump is a trustworthy dealmaker.
Trump tried to push back against claims that his tariffs are harming the economy, saying that gasoline and egg prices are already dropping. The president blamed the Federal Reserve for interest rates rising on U.S. debt. Rates largely increased because investors were worried about Trump’s tariff plans and they became less willing to buy Treasury notes, while the central bank has held steady on its own benchmark rates because of economic uncertainty.
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