Trump v CASA - Supreme Court of the USA
THE RULE OF LAW IS NOT A GIVEN IN THIS NATION, NOR ANY OTHER - Justice Sotamayor
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America begins -
‘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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’
Faced with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order No 14160, the Supreme Court of the USA has ridden roughshod over those words.
The words ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ have, according to the Executive order, always excluded some categories of individuals born in the USA -
(1) when that person's mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth, or
(2) when that person's mother's presence in the United States at the time of said person's birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth.
I am not sufficiently versed in the laws of the USA to say whether that is a correct statement of the law but those who drafted the executive order signed by Trump obviously think it is correct. Legal challenges to the executive order were brought in the US courts and those courts issued “universal injunctions” barring executive officials from applying the Executive Order to anyone, not just those who brought the case (‘the plaintiffs’). In each case, the Court of Appeals denied the Government’s request to stay the injunctions. The matter reached the Supreme Court which heard legal argument on 15 March 2025 and gave judgment on 27 June 2025.
The court decided by a majority to grant the government’s applications for a partial stay of the injunctions but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.
This was a majority decision. Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court. 6 Justices granted the government’s application and 3 justices dissented.
The main dissenting judgment is that of Justice Sotomayor. This opinion contains the following paragraph
** THE RULE OF LAW IS NOT A GIVEN IN THIS NATION, NOR ANY OTHER **
Sotomayor is correct in stating that the rule of law is a precept of democracy. Those who govern frequently hold enormous power and that is particularly true of the United States Presidency. Such executive power requires proper checks otherwise democracy is lost only to be replaced by authoritarianism and dictatorship. Here is a clear warning to all democracies.
The 14th Amendment (Section 5) says that ‘The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.’ It therefore is open to Congress to legislate and, if it thinks it appropriate, to do so regarding the status of those born in the USA.
Congress certainly ought to consider this subject and should also take a hard look at the use of Executive Orders. Unfortunately, Congress all too often seems content to allow the Presidency as much free rein as possible. People like Trump like to get their own way and are too often used to getting it. Such individuals have to be controlled.
In the unlikely event that the present Congress acts on this, it would be open to the President to veto the legislation.
Presidential vetoes can be reversed if Congress so votes by a two-thirds majority. During his first term in office, Trump vetoed 10 items of legislation and was reversed only once.
Dissenting judgments are at times “an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day”- Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes
New York Bar Association - Great Dissents
The American Presidency Project - Presidential vetoes
The Judgment of the Supreme Court is available HERE