There are many lawsuits on the Trump administration’s alleged illegal actions – 132 of them As of March 21, according to the legal news website. Track a lot.
However, two issues arising from some of these lawsuits are Trump’s most blatant violations of the Constitution, so special attention should be paid.
One question is whether Trump can simply cancel federal spending on the Congress bill, called the “seizure” issue. As future Chief Justice William Rehnquist Memorandum of the Ministry of Justice in 1969“It seems very difficult to develop a constitutional theory to justify the president’s refusal to comply with congressional directives.”
Another issue is birthright citizenship. The Constitution is Absolutely clear Anyone born in the United States and subject to law is a citizen regardless of the parent’s immigration status. As a judge appointed by Reagan said, Trump tried to deprive citizenship from some Americans born in this country, “I have been sitting on the bench for forty years and I don’t remember another situation, and when the questions raised are clear, I don’t remember.”
The current Supreme Court is not only correct Shocking party. The court has settled old grievances over the past few years, The Republicans have long considered offensive decades of cases to reject decades. It even ruled that Republican leader Trump is Allowing to use his official power to commit crimes.
So there is reason to worry that most justices will only do what the Republican government wants them to do.
This is why the right to birth citizenship and water storage cases are so important to be vigilant. There is no competent lawyer, and of course no reasonable judge to conclude that Trump’s actions are legal in either case. There is no serious debate about the Constitution’s view on any issue. If the court had favored Trump’s ruling in both cases, it would be hard to imagine a justice who offered any meaningful challenge to anything Trump wanted to do.
Fortunately, there are early signs that this won’t happen. Regarding the seizure issue, the Supreme Court recently rejected it Trump administration’s demands Blocking lower court orders forced the government to pay about $2 billion to foreign aid organizations.
Voting is 5-4, court rulings may Trump’s lawyer makes a careless mistake. Still, even a small Trump failure shows that most justices are not so eager to save Republican leaders that they will seize the first opportunity.
Similarly, three cases recently raised the issue of citizenship in the right to birth have recently landed in court Shadow Summary – Emergency motions and similar matters are usually determined very quickly outside the court’s normal schedule. So far, the court has issued only a brief order indicating that the judge The case was not considered until April 4 At first, three weeks after the Trump administration asked them to intervene.
This is not a clear sign that citizens with birthrights are safe, but the fact that the court decided to wait three weeks ago was ahead of the lower court order, which protected citizenship with reproductive rights, showed that most judges did not take the Trump administration’s argument very seriously. If anything, they would likely hear the case early—for example, in foreign aid cases, four judges supported Trump’s case, the plaintiff was Only two days of response The Justice Department’s argument.
The legal argument for seizure is really bad
Trump claims The right to fully cancel the expenditure of Congress appropriationsincluding the demolition of the entire agency such as the United States International Development Agency (USAID). He also issued an executive order Claims to be deprived of citizenship Many children from birth to undocumented mothers, or to parents who temporarily appear in the United States. So far, the court has doubted both actions because they are clearly unconstitutional.
Renequist responded to the water storage and muttered to himself. There is no supportive argument in the Constitution at all that the president can seize the money that Congress ordered him to spend. Indeed, the only language in the Constitution that talks about this issue is directed at Trump. Among other things, the Constitution says the President “Pay attention to the faithful enforcement of the law. ”The President therefore has the responsibility to faithfully enforce any laws provided for federal spending.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that at least two Republicans in the court have previously expressed suspicion of the seizure. Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his 2013 view:Even the president has no unilateral power to refuse to spend“The funding from Congress is allocated. Roberts wrote in a 1985 White House memorandum:Nothing is more clear than the power of the wallet is the Capitol Province. ” (Although it is worth noting that Roberts also suggests that in the memorandum’s attachment, the president may have greater power in spending related to foreign policy.)
Legal arguments against birthright citizenship are even worse
The reasons for birthright citizenship are simpler. this Fourteenth Amendment It stipulates that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States and the country in which they reside.” If the federal government can enforce its laws against that person, someone is subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Undocumented immigrants and their children are clearly bound by U.S. law, otherwise they will not be able to arrest or deport.
The Supreme Court held United States v Wong Kim ARK (1898), the exception to “judiciality” is narrow, mainly applicable to children of “foreign representatives” who have diplomatic immunity to American law and “children of hostile alien enemies.”
At least three courts issued orders that blocked Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship. The Trump administration claimed that the term “jurisdiction” was actually “loyalty” when it briefly asked the Supreme Court to narrow down the orders. So if someone doesn’t owe a citizen”The main loyalty to the United States, not the “foreign human power.”transparent
But there are two reasons to doubt that even the Trump administration agrees with this argument. One is Trump’s executive order Claims only to deprive citizens of foreign nationals born from certain children – For example, the children of two legal permanent residents remain citizens. However, if the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to anyone who responds to “main allegiance” to “foreign power,” it would mean that the children of all foreign nationals should be deprived of their citizenship. The Constitution does not exist in the United States based on the laws of the children’s parents, nor does it draw a line based on whether these parents are temporary or permanent residents.
The second reason is that in the profile with the judge, the administration did not even require the court to fully restore Trump’s birthright citizen order. Instead, it requires the court to narrow down the lower court’s rulings so that they only apply to plaintiffs in specific lawsuits challenging the order. If Trump’s lawyers think they have a winning argument, they will almost certainly ask the justices to consider the merits of the case.
Whether a lower-level judge can publish what is called “National ban“The order suspended the entire federal policy rather than allowed plaintiffs to ignore the policy in individual cases to last for some time. It was these orders that prevented Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship. Trump’s Justice Department forced the court to force the court to limit these orders during his first term to limit the attacks on these orders.” Management with Biden. But so far, the court has allowed at least some of these extensive orders to stand.
And there is Strong debate against these national bansthe court refused to limit their years of efforts. Trump’s argument on merits is rash for the judge to suddenly decide to deprive him of his power to issue these orders in a case of right to birth citizenship.
In any case, the only external sign that the Justice has given about their views on citizenship with the right to birth indicates that Trump will be lost. When the Justice Department requires the Supreme Court to enforce a lower court ruling, one of the judges usually requires the other party in the case to respond back and forth through a short deadline – sometimes only a few days, and rarely more than a week. However, in this case, the court argued to the plaintiff that it supported the right to birth citizenship Respond in three full weeks.
As long as the court does nothing, the lower court orders to prevent Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship remain valid. It is unlikely that the justice will do anything until they read the plaintiff’s response. So, by linking the case for three weeks, the Justice ensured that Trump’s executive order would not take effect anytime soon.
All of this suggests that the Supreme Court seems unlikely to support Trump’s most explicit violations of the Constitution. This does not mean that the court will conduct meaningful inspections of many other illegal Trump actions. But it does show that at least some members of the Republican majority in the court occasionally say “no” to their party leaders.
