Chicago – June 27, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump a big win on Friday in a case about birthright citizenship. The decision limits how much judges can block his policies across the country, changing the way power is shared between the federal courts and the president.
The court ruled 6-3, with the majority opinion written by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. However, the ruling didn’t allow Trump’s plan to restrict birthright citizenship to start right away. Instead, it told lower courts that had blocked the plan to reconsider their decisions. The court didn’t rule on whether the policy itself was legal, but Trump was happy with the decision. He called it a “monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.”
The court agreed to limit the impact of three “universal” injunctions that federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington state had put in place. These injunctions had stopped Trump’s policy from being enforced nationwide while the legal challenges continued. The conservative justices made up the majority, while the liberal justices disagreed.
The court’s decision said that Trump’s executive order couldn’t take effect until 30 days after the ruling, which means the policy might start applying in some parts of the country later on.
This decision came on the last day of the Supreme Court’s nine-month term. On the same day, the court also made rulings on other important issues, including a Texas law about online pornography, allowing parents to opt out of classes with LGBT books, supporting the Federal Communications Commission’s plans for expanding phone and internet access, and keeping Obamacare’s rule about preventive care for health insurance.
