What to know about the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling
The Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump a major win on Friday, ruling that a single judge cannot block a presidential order from taking effect nationwide.
The case stemmed from President Donald Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship for some children, which has been frozen by multiple lower courts. With Friday's decision, that order can now begin to go ahead.
The six conservative members of the Supreme Court sided with the president, finding that injunctions can only apply to those who have sued.
Trump appointed three of the justices in his first term.
The liberal justices, meanwhile, said the ruling went too far in lessening courts' powers and strengthening the president's.
Today's ruling was about these courts' uses of injunctions - not Trump's birthright citizenship order itself - meaning it could apply to several other cases involving nationwide injunctions as well.
A quick road to the Supreme Court
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order aimed at ending automatic citizenship rights for nearly anyone born on US territory - commonly known as "birthright citizenship".
The move was instantly met by a series of lawsuits filed by five pregnant women, 22 states, two cities, the Maryland immigrant advocacy group CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.
They are arguing the order goes against the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which established that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside".
However, the Trump administration's says the clause "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means the amendment excludes children of people not in the country permanently or lawfully.
Judges in district courts in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state issued nationwide injunctions that blocked the order from taking effect.
In Washington, US District Court Judge John Coughenour called Trump's executive order "blatantly unconstitutional".
Trump's Department of Justice responded by saying the case did not warrant the "extraordinary measure" of a temporary restraining order and appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
Injunctions have served as a check on Trump during his second term, amid a flurry of executive orders signed by the president.
Roughly 40 different court injunctions have been filed this year. This includes two lower courts that blocked the Trump administration from banning most transgender people from the military, although the Supreme Court eventually intervened and allowed the policy to be enforced.
Why the court ruled against nationwide injunctions
The most junior conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, wrote the opinion, saying that lower courts were taking too much power in freezing Trump's orders. Under the constitution, the executive (president), judicial (courts) and legislative (Congress) branches of government are supposed to be equal.
"Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them," Justice Barrett wrote. "When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too."
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that if lower courts do not apply "historical equitable limits" in issuing injunctions the Supreme Court will continue to intervene.
The Supreme Court did not do away with injunctions entirely. Judges can block the orders from taking effect for the people who sue against them while their lawsuits proceed. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that people challenging an order can band together "statewide, region-wide or even nationwide" in a class action lawsuit.
The issue of nationwide injunctions had long troubled Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum.
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said in remarks in 2022: "It can't be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through the normal process."
Nationwide injunctions have also been criticised for enabling what is known as forum shopping - the practice of filing a lawsuit in a jurisdiction where a more favourable ruling is likely.
Another critique of injunctions is the speed at which they are delivered versus their far-reaching impact.
The Trump administration had argued that judges were making high stakes decisions with little time to consider the case and "low information".
What were the arguments against the ruling?
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's most senior liberal, wrote a passionate dissent from the ruling, which she read from the bench.
She wrote the ruling took too much power from the courts so that the three branches of government were no longer equal, while arguing that the government had played games in asking the court to make a decision on injunctions instead of on birthright citizenship. She also wrote extensively about birthright citizenship itself.
"By stripping all federal courts, including itself, of that power, the Court kneecaps the Judiciary's authority to stop the Executive from enforcing even the most unconstitutional policies," Justice Sotomayor wrote.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had said earlier that the Trump administration's argument advocated for a "catch me if you can" justice system.
"Your argument says 'we get to keep on doing it until everyone who is potentially harmed by it figures out how to file a lawsuit, hire a lawyer, etc,'" Jackson had said.
On Friday she wrote that the decision "to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law".
In general, the liberal justices, along with those arguing against the Trump administration, were concerned about consistency, saying there would be "chaos" in the absence of a nationwide injunction, creating a patchwork system of citizenship.
What does this mean for birthright citizenship?
The order will go into effect for anyone not a party to the lawsuit in 30 days.
The injunctions will only remain in place for "each plaintiff with standing to sue", according to the opinion.
When the state itself is a plaintiff, the lower court could still decide a nationwide injunction is warranted, said University of Michigan legal scholar Margo Schlanger. But that interpretation would likely also be appealed by the federal government, she noted.
"It narrowed the path for an injunction, but it didn't cut it off completely," she told the BBC.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the merits of the birthright citizenship order itself at some date in the future.
Most legal scholars believe it would likely be found unconstitutional.
Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that birthright citizenship is the "law of the land" and the order is "patently unconstitutional".
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday, though, the administration expects the Supreme Court to agree with it and uphold the order in October.