The U.S. Supreme Court heard Thursday a debate over whether a federal judge could stop Donald Trump from executing orders nationwide.
This is the first time the court weighs whether a judge in a lower court can block the policy of the president nationwide and may have a wide range of impacts on Trump’s ability to execute his second term agenda.
As part of a promise to restrict immigration, Trump signed an executive order in January that prevents children born to illegal or temporary mothers in the United States from becoming citizens’ fathers automatically.
Many judges in the lower federal court blocked the order, one of which was “blatantly unconstitutional.”
These judges are asked to consider on Thursday whether judges in the lower court should have the right to issue a national injunction against the order, rather than the constitutionality of the order itself.
The victory of the government could overturn a nationwide ban and potentially deprive the constitutional right born in the United States to become a citizen.
In recent years, the nationwide ban has been angered in recent years, often falling into legislation in partisan procedural struggles because the president chose to execute orders rather than legislation in Congress.
But the courts seem to be divided on the issue, with some conservative judges appearing to question whether individual judges should be able to block measures nationwide, believing that the top courts can quickly rule out disputed cases.
Others seem to support the liberal judges’ concerns about the birthright order.
U.S. Attorney General D John Sauer told the court Thursday that the national ban was a "bipartisan issue" that encouraged "rampant forum shopping, requiring judges to make hasty, high-risk, low-information decisions."
But liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the government's argument could turn "the judicial system into'catch me if you can look at it from the perspective of an executive, everyone must have a lawyer and file a lawsuit so that the government can stop the rights to human rights violations".
Libertarian Elena Kagan added that if it is up to individuals to decide on the right to birth case: “Those who cannot afford the court are the ones who are going to lose”.
“In cases like this, the government has no incentive to bring this case to the Supreme Court…it is losing many individual cases, which still enables it to execute its (executive order) to the vast majority of people (executive orders) that apply”.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in June or early July.