Nationwide injunctions and birthright citizenship cases

Today, 5/15/2025, three consolidated birthright citizenship cases will
be argued before the Supreme Court. Trump v. CASA, filed by immigrants
rights groups and several pregnant women in Maryland; Trump v.
Washington, filed in Seattle by a group of four states; and Trump v. New
Jersey, filed in Massachusetts by a group of 18 states, the District of
Columbia, and San Francisco.

D. John Sauer is Solicitor General. I recognized the scratchy voice.
He's made these arguments over the years and was clearly hired by Trump
to argue this type of case.

However, Court observers have predicted that most of the time will be
spent analyzing universal injunctions, a practice that has proliferated
over the last several decades. Filing for a universal injunction allows
the plaintiff to avoid the difficult task of getting a class certified,
then seeking a remedy on behalf of members of the class.

I'm going to side with Trump here. Generally, universal injunctions have
been abused. I came to that conclusion with their use against numerous
Biden executive orders; some of these injunctions were issued by
Trump-appointed judges. There were certainly universal injunctions
against Trump during his first term and I'm sure some of them were
abuses of discretion.

Trump's position here is hypocritical and it's going to end up thwarting
use of federal courts by supporters of Trump policies.

What are they thinking?

However, I don't know that the answer is to ban them entirely. If it's
an executive order or an order issued by a Cabinet secretary for his
department, or a regulation, I don't see how to avoid asking for a
universal injunction. Not every case is an administrative finding
against one party for which a universal injunction is irrelevant.

I had to laugh. Nina Totenberg, the NPR legal affairs analyst, pointed
out the unfortunate timing for the Trump administration to make this
argument weeks before summer recess. No universal injunctions? Then the
Supreme Court will get no vacation at all, having to spend absurd
amounts of time issuing orders on the shadow docket on redundant cases.
For that reason, they aren't going to make it unconstitutional.

Sauer repeated an argument he's made before, which I don't think is
supported by any sitting Supreme Court justice, that the citizenship
clause was limited to slaves and their children born in the United
States freed by the Thirteenth Amendment.