Sotomayor Tells SC Majority: None Of Your Rights Are Safe

In a scathing dissent against the Supreme Court’s recent birthright citizenship decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made clear what just happened: The Trump administration set a trap for the court, and the conservative justices walked right into it, Shirin Ali reported for Slate.

Justice Sotomayor notes that her conservative colleagues — three of whom Trump appointed in his first term — are creating a “new legal regime” in which all of our rights are at risk. I Photo: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Steve Petteway

In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order undoing birthright citizenship — a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Numerous plaintiffs — including 22 states — filed suit, and three separate lower-court judges found the order blatantly unconstitutional. Each of them issued nationwide injunctions that prevented the executive order from taking effect anywhere in the country.

The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, and at oral argument in May, it framed the case as a chance to consider whether nationwide injunctions themselves are unconstitutional.

That framing paved the way for the high court to allow Trump to violate the 14th Amendment in half of U.S. states — without appearing, on paper, to rule on the amendment at all.

It also allowed the conservative supermajority to take away one of the judiciary’s main tools for upholding the law.

On Friday, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices gave Trump what he wanted: They ruled that the three nationwide injunctions apply only to the plaintiffs — effectively limiting birthright citizenship protections to those 22 states and the District of Columbia, two immigrants’ rights groups, and four pregnant women.

“The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempts to hide it,” Sotomayor writes.

“Yet shamefully, this Court plays along.” By doing so, she notes, her conservative colleagues — three of whom Trump appointed in his first term — are creating a “new legal regime” in which all of our rights are at risk.