In the wake of major Supreme Court rulings, All Rise News reached out to the people and groups directly involved in the litigation about their impact.
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The Supreme Court today drastically constrained the power of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions to block illegal and unconstitutional actions, including Donald Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship in the United States.
Those fighting these legal battles, however, appear to be optimistic about their ability to hold the Trump administration accountable in the face of this new high court hurdle.
Skye Perryman, the CEO and president of
, believes the ruling will not stop her advocacy group from obtaining and defending such injunctions.“We don't want to minimize how devastating it is to really look to a court for the relief that you want to see, especially when the president does something as audacious as suggesting he can change the Constitution with a stroke of a pen,” Perryman told All Rise News in a Substack Live today. “But when you really dive into this opinion, we believe there's a lot more avenues for people to ensure that their rights are protected.”
“We are going to be victorious”
One of those avenues is class action litigation, and two such lawsuits were filed in federal court within hours of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
CASA, a Maryland-based advocacy group that brought the lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court’s ruling, amended their complaint within hours to make it a class action. The group already has sought a temporary restraining order to immediately block Trump’s executive order from taking effect 30 days from now.
“As we understand, our injunction holds: Our CASA members and individuals that live in states that joined challenges to this unlawful executive order are protected,” the group’s chief of programs and services George Escobar said in a phone interview, noting that the Supreme Court allowed the injunction to continue to protect the named plaintiffs.
Still, the broader battle continues.
“I think ultimately we are going to be victorious, and I think it will be quick,” Escobar said.
CASA’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order reflects that urgency. The group asked the court to act “immediately, without awaiting further briefing” to block Trump’s birthright citizenship order to protect a class that would amount to a nationwide injunction.
The class is defined as “all children who have been born or will be born in the United States on or after February 19, 2025, who are designated by Executive Order 14,160 to be ineligible for birthright citizenship, and their parents.”
“Shamefully, this court plays along”
Democracy Forward is similarly bullish about their ability to defend their nationwide injunctions in the birthright citizenship litigation and several other lawsuits involving education funding, cuts to AmeriCorps, the reorganizing of federal agencies and more.
Despite that view, the groups and their leaders agree with Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent stating that the majority opinion is a blow to the rule of law.
“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,” Sotomayor wrote. “Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.”
Sotomayor said that the Supreme Court’s new legal regime requires “cumbersome class-action litigation” for people to vindicate their rights against illegal and unconstitutional actions.
“That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit,” Sotomayor wrote. “Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent.”
Trump has not yet asked the Supreme Court to defend the constitutionality of his executive order, which seeks to turn the plain reading of the 14th Amendment on its head.
“The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempt to hide it,” Sotomayor wrote. “Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along.”
Perryman agrees with the sentiment, even as she holds out hope for the ultimate outcome.
“The dissenting justices are very upset that the court, as Justice Sotomayor said, has invited this gamesmanship, but lawyers are going to lawyer,” she said.
Watch the full interview at the top of this story.
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