Overview

• The Supreme Court recently completed oral arguments on whether lower courts can issue nationwide injunctions against executive orders, focusing on procedural authority rather than the constitutionality of Trump's birthright citizenship order.
• President Trump's executive order, issued in January 2025, denies citizenship to U.S.-born children unless at least one parent is a citizen or legal resident, sparking over 100 lawsuits and multiple injunctions from lower courts.
• U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that nationwide injunctions exceed judicial authority and urged the Court to limit such remedies to avoid overreach and patchwork rulings.
• Liberal justices, including Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, emphasized the necessity of nationwide injunctions to prevent potentially unlawful executive actions from impacting large populations immediately.
• The Court's decision, expected by late June, will address whether nationwide injunctions align with traditional equitable jurisdiction under the Judiciary Act and constitutional limits under Article III.