MIAMI – A South Florida immigration attorney is weighing in after the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a significant legal victory to the Trump administration on Friday, ruling that federal judges cannot issue universal injunctions that apply nationwide.
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In a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, the high court ruled that a lower court’s injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting birthright citizenship only applies to the plaintiffs in that specific case — not to everyone in a similar situation across the country.
“So what it means is that for everybody else subject to birth in the United States who may not have had lawful parents they do have standing to sue and they too have the constitutional rights, but not in this lawsuit,” said Miami-based immigration attorney Linda Osberg-Braun.
“Which means it could generate a whole bunch of new lawsuits?” she was asked by Local 10’s Christina Vazquez.
“It’s a court clogger,” Osberg-Braun responded.
While the justices did not rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, they narrowed the scope of federal judges’ power to halt presidential actions nationwide.
“This is really a case on the checks and balances of our three divisions of our government, and here the judicial and the executive,” Osberg-Braun said. “I believe the courts ruled that the executive and the judicial cannot check in with each other and they ruled very specifically that there’s no universal injunction — and they’re not saying that those individuals do not have standing — they do. But only the ones in the lawsuit, and that injunction stands.”
Osberg-Braun called the ruling “anti-climactic” and said the court sidestepped the core legal issue.
“Perhaps it would have been faster for the Supreme Court to simply rule on the issue,” she said. “And that’s why today’s ruling is anti-climactic. We need to know whether or not the president can enforce his executive order.”
“And in my opinion, anybody who’s been lucky enough to have been born in this country, who was born on U.S. soil, is the United States citizen and has all of the rights associated, and the privileges associated, and also the responsibilities associated with being a United States citizen,” she added.
Osberg-Braun pointed to the clarity of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The amendment goes on to say: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Judges have uniformly ruled against the administration.
The Justice Department had argued that individual judges lack the power to give nationwide effect to their rulings.
The Trump administration instead wanted the justices to allow Trump’s plan to go into effect for everyone except the handful of people and groups that sued. Failing that, the administration argued that the plan could remain blocked for now in the 22 states that sued. New Hampshire is covered by a separate order that is not at issue in this case.
The justice also agreed that the administration may make public announcements about how it plans to carry out the policy if it eventually is allowed to take effect.