President Trump is pushing the Supreme Court to limit the power of lower court judges who oppose his agenda, arguing that judges exceeded their authority when they issued a nationwide injunction against the president's order to end birthright citizenship. Bloomberg's Greg Stohr reports.


President Donald Trump is pressing the US Supreme Court to use a dispute over one of his most audacious immigration initiatives as a way to constrain the judges who keep thwarting his agenda.
The court on Thursday will consider the administration’s bid to strip judges of the power to block government policies nationwide. The unusual May session – the court’s first oral argument tied to Trump’s government overhaul – stems from his attempt to unilaterally topple the longstanding consensus that the Constitution confers so-called birthright citizenship on virtually everyone born on US soil.

The court will weigh a question that cuts across the 320-plus lawsuits challenging Trump’s initiatives. Trump says three federal judges exceeded their authority by halting his birthright citizenship restrictions across the country, rather than issuing narrower decisions confined to the people and groups that sued. 

The orders are among more than 30 so-called nationwide or universal injunctions judges have issued against the administration, including orders restoring foreign-aid payments and halting cuts in reimbursement rates for universities.

The issue carries major importance, said Jeffrey Wall, a Washington lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and former deputy solicitor general during Trump’s first administration. Nationwide injunctions “allow a single litigant or judge to put on hold what the president wants to do, sometimes for years,” he said.

Administrations from both parties have decried universal injunctions, but Trump’s team has ratcheted up the criticism. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices in court papers that nationwide injunctions have reached “epidemic” levels and now “gravely encroach on the president’s executive power.”

The justices won’t be directly considering the legality of Trump’s birthright-citizenship initiative, though they may provide clues about their thinking. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order would mean that babies born in the US wouldn’t become Americans unless at least one parent is a citizen or green card holder. Newborns who don’t meet the new criteria couldn’t get citizenship-based documents including Social Security cards and passports.

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