newsletter 06/27/25

SCOTUS Limits Nationwide Injunctions in ICAP’s Birthright Citizenship Case, but ICAP Responds Immediately with a Class-Action to Protect Birthright Citizenship for all U.S.-born Children

Today, the Supreme Court delivered its ruling on the permissibility of nationwide injunctions (also known as “universal” injunctions) in our case challenging the president’s Executive Order attempting to limit birthright citizenship.  The Court held that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts” and granted a partial stay of the existing nationwide injunctions, limiting them to what is “necessary to provide complete relief” to the plaintiffs.  Although we are disappointed in the Court’s ruling today, it is a procedural ruling only.  The Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of the Executive Order, which every lower court to rule on the issue has held to be unconstitutional.  It also did not stay the injunction barring the Executive Order from being applied to the plaintiffs in our case:  individual named pregnant mothers (some of whom have given birth) and members of CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP).  Their children remain protected against the Executive Order.

To ensure protection for all U.S.-born children and not just those who had the ability to file a lawsuit, within two hours of the Supreme Court decision, we filed an amended class-action complaint and a motion seeking an immediate injunction for all babies born or who will be born in the United States to whom the Executive Order would otherwise apply, and their parents. We are hopeful that the district court will move quickly to fill the gap left by the Supreme Court to ensure that every child born in this country receives their constitutionally protected right of citizenship.  We are hard at work communicating with the media and the public to ensure that everyone understands that the Supreme Court’s decision did not approve of the Executive Order or stay the injunction as to our plaintiffs, and left the door open to class-wide relief, which is what we are now seeking. Read more about the issue in this coverage of our press conference earlier today.

Our optimistic path forward to protect birthright citizenship is the good news.  The implications of the Supreme Court’s restriction on universal injunctions for other cases challenging executive overreach, some of which may not be appropriate for class actions, is the bad news.  We will have more to say about that at a later date, but for now, we are confident that our litigation and similar litigation brought by others will ultimately result in the end of this unconstitutional Executive Order and the protection of birthright citizenship provided by the Fourteenth Amendment for all babies born in the United States.