Michigan – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has harshly criticized the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the combined case of Trump v. CASA. The case was about challenges to an executive order that intended to remove birthright citizenship.
The Court decided on Friday that federal district courts probably don’t have the power to issue universal injunctions. This means that preliminary injunctions can only apply to the plaintiffs who are directly involved in the case.
This result implies that the injunction that stops the executive order will still protect the states and parties that sued, including Michigan, but it will no longer protect people in states that did not oppose the policy. Because of this, the executive order might now effectively take hold in those states where no legal action was taken. This would mean that constitutional rights would not be applied equally across the country.
Attorney General Nessel called the verdict a dangerous step toward eroding the idea of equal rights in a statement posted soon after the ruling. She said that the decision lets presidents ignore constitutional protections in states that don’t want to or can’t fight in court, which puts basic freedoms at the mercy of where you live and what the government wants.
“This unprecedented decision doesn’t make Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship lawful. It simply allows it to stand in states either unwilling or afraid to challenge it, inviting this president and future ones to ignore constitutional limits,” Nessel said.
The attorney general said that the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect everyone’s rights equally across the country, not let different states make different decisions about them. She pointed out how unjust it would be for a child to be able to get birthright citizenship only in the state where they were born.
“A baby born in Ohio or Indiana should be entitled to the same birthright citizenship as a baby born in Michigan or Illinois,” Nessel added.
Nessel additionally stated again that she would protect the rights of Michiganders and promised to keep fighting in court to protect birthright citizenship. She was certain that the pending challenges will eventually succeed in overturning the executive order on its grounds, and she promised to preserve the constitutional rights of Michigan residents.
The Supreme Court’s decision focused solely at whether federal courts may issue sweeping injunctions; it didn’t look at whether the executive order itself was valid. Because of this, the legal question of whether the president may take away birthright citizenship is still up in the air and will continue to be decided in court.
The injunction blocking enforcement of the executive order will stay in place for Michigan and the other states involved in the lawsuit, preserving birthright citizenship protections for now in those jurisdictions. But there is still uncertainty in other places where the order could go into effect, which could lead to more court challenges and make divisions over constitutional rights even worse.