Supreme Court limits scope of nationwide injunctions by lower federal courts

Supreme Court limits scope of nationwide injunctions by lower federal courts.

Israeli soldiers say they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians waiting for aid in Gaza.

Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order that would reinterpret a clause in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The clause states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”. Trump’s executive order wanted to make official a reinterpretation of this clause in a way that would confer citizenship only on children born in the US with at least one parent who is a US citizen or permanent resident.

Several district courts, the lowest rung of federal courts, issued nationwide injunctions to block implementation of Trump’s reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court to limit the power of these federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions. Today, the Supreme Court court ruled that district court judges likely exceeded their authority in imposing nationwide injunctions against Trump’s executive order. The ruling did not overturn birthright citizenship, nor did it even touch on the merits of doing so.

What may be the effects of this ruling?

The court’s majority also did not clarify the bounds of the authority of lower court judges when applying injunctions. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett called on lower courts to “move expeditiously” to determine how broad the injunctions can be. While this means the full scope of this ruling is yet to be determined, it has already created troubling implications for how challenges to executive branch actions can be litigated, and what actions individuals affected by those actions must take to legally protect themselves.

Depending what the lower courts decide to do, UVA Law School professor Amanda Frost says today’s ruling could mean that if, for example, Trump were to revoke the birthright citizenship of a class of 1000 people born in the US, each of the affected plaintiffs would have to sue individually to have their rights restored. However, in her dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor encouraged individuals affected by unconstitutional executive decisions to file class-action lawsuits, which is an avenue today’s ruling left intact.

Frost says that today’s ruling will increase the burden of lower courts, since individual classes of plaintiffs will have to sue to contest executive actions affecting them. From the government’s perspective, it will also mean that the Department of Justice will have to assign more attorneys to make the government’s case in districts across the country, which will be far more costly to taxpayers.

Different rights in different states?

Since the Supreme Court majority sidestepped the question of the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order, this means that he is free to continue imposing its implementation in districts where it hasn’t been ruled unconstitutional. This means that individuals living in states or districts where the order is in force will have to sue in order to have their citizenship rights restored.

This could potentially mean a child born to non-citizen parents in Arkansas would not have their citizenship recognized, but in California they would.

Other SCOTUS rulings today:

Texas law requiring users to submit ID to view porn sites upheld.

Court sides with parents who want to opt their children out of reading LGBT-friendly books.

Obamacare requirement for insurance companies to cover preventive care preserved.

Court upholds FCC requirement for telecoms companies to subsidize phone and internet service in underserved areas.

Israeli soldiers say they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians in Gaza waiting for aid

It’s now been a month since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli backed aid scheme to replace UN-backed aid programs, began operating in Gaza. Since then, 549 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and over 4,000 have been seriously wounded while waiting for aid. Aid seekers have been killed either by being shot or bombed or shelled by tanks. Israel’s apologists have attempted to blame Hamas for these killings. However, witnesses and even aid workers have said that the Israeli army (IDF) itself has been responsible for the carnage.

Now, Israeli soldiers have told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that their commanders had ordered soldiers to fire on Palestinian civilians while they were waiting for aid, though they clearly didn’t pose any threat. The distribution sites are usually open only for one hour each day. Soldiers say that they are told to use live fire as crowd control- firing into crowds who get too close or try to approach the humanitarian zone before it opens, and firing again to disperse them after it closes.

“It’s a killing field,” one soldier told Haaretz. “Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire”.

The IDF has denied the soldier’s reports but also says it has opened an investigation.

Israeli strike targeting Gaza police distributing flour kills 18.