The Supreme Court’s Intolerable Ruling on Birthright Citizenship

Opinion|The Supreme Court’s ‘Zone of Lawlessness’

What can individual federal courts immediately do when the president issues a blatantly unconstitutional order? The Supreme Court gave its answer on Friday morning: Not much.

In an astonishing act of deference to the executive branch, the Supreme Court essentially said that district judges cannot stop an illegal presidential order from going into effect nationwide. A judge can stop an order from affecting a given plaintiff or state, if one has the wherewithal to file a lawsuit. But if there’s no lawsuit in the next state over, the president can get away with virtually anything he wants.

The executive order at issue in this case was one issued by President Trump on his first day back in office, depriving citizenship to babies born in the United States to undocumented parents or even temporary residents, and it is as unconstitutional as they come, violating the clear wording of the 14th Amendment. Three federal judges, supported by three courts of appeals, have already ruled that it is illegal to end birthright citizenship.

But that didn’t matter to the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices, who said the lower courts had exceeded their power. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote the majority opinion, said the judiciary does not have “unbridled authority to enforce” the executive’s obligation to follow the law, because doing so would create an “imperial judiciary.”