Supreme Court updates: Trump says ruling paves way to end funding for cities like Philly; fate of birthright citizenship unclear

Pennsylvania is one of 28 states at risk of losing birthright citizenship pending further litigation in the next month following a Supreme Court decision Friday that limits the ability of federal judges to halt President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

The decision creates the potential scenario in which children born to some immigrant parents on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River will have citizenship while those born on the Pennsylvania side will not.

The justices did not rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s move to end automatic birthright citizenship, a right that has existed for more than 150 years through the 14th Amendment, but ruled that federal judges had overstepped in applying an injunction in a case filed by 22 states to the entire nation. Legal experts widely say Trump’s executive order appears to be unconstitutional, despite his procedural victory.

The Supreme Court's decision in a case involving birthright citizenship could allow President Donald Trump's ban to go into effect sooner in 28 states – including Pennsylvania – that didn't challenge his order.

22 states, including New Jersey and Delaware, sued Trump in federal court back in January to block the executive order from taking effect, which was invalidated nationwide by three different judges.

The Supreme Court's ruling limits such nationwide injunctions, meaning states that weren't part of the lawsuit could see the order go into effect after the court's 30-day ban, even if the Supreme Court ultimately rules Trump's ban on birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court decision to limit nationwide injunctions brought mixed reactions from elected officials in New Jersey and Delaware.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said he was “disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court today made it harder for Americans to rely on the courts to ensure that the federal government follows the law,” and that he expected President Donald Trump to view the decision “as an invitation to continue disregarding the Constitution.”

But the order still makes way for the possibility of a nationwide injunction in the legal fight from Democratic attorney generals against Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, led by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin.

William Powell, an attorney for the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, said Trump’s birthright citizenship order requires a change in procedural approach and that challengers to it are now pursuing a class action suit.

“That’s all the babies who have already been born, and all the babies who will be born in the future, as well as the parents of the babies who have been born and the expecting parents,” Powell said.

Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, one of the plaintiffs seeking to block the order, said the Supreme Court’s opinion means the order is blocked for 30 days.

Democratic attorneys general called out their Republican counterparts for not suing over President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order – including in Pennsylvania.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said that regardless of people’s views of the 14th Amendment allowing birthright citizenship, it’s a matter of constitutionality over undoing any amendment.

“Why are Republican AGs, to be explicit, not a part of these lawsuits that are blatantly violating the Constitution and blatantly outside of the authority that the president has?” Campbell said.

In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants born in this country, a move certain to generate both new controversy and legal challenges.

What exactly is birthright citizenship?

It’s the legal foundation under which American citizenship is automatically conferred upon people who are born in the United States. The formal term is jus soli, Latin for right of the soil. Automatic citizenship also extends to children who are born abroad to U.S. citizens.

While the Supreme Court has not yet announced which cases it will take, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the fate of birthright citizenship in the U.S. will be decided by justices during their next term.

"Birthright citizenship will be decided in October, in the next session by the Supreme Court, unless it comes down in the next few minutes," Bondi told reporters at a news briefing at the White House Friday.

"If there's a birthright citizenship case in Oregon, it will only affect the plaintiff in Oregon, not the entire country,” Bondi added.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said he disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision to limit judges from blocking President Donald Trump's executive orderers, but was "glad" to see the court temporarily block his order eliminating birthright citizenship.

"We are confident that his flagrantly unconstitutional order will remain enjoined by the courts," Platkin said in a statement. "And in the meantime, our fight continues: we will keep challenging President Trump’s flagrantly unlawful order, which strips American babies of citizenship for the first time since the Civil War, and we look forward to a decision in the coming months that holds this disgraceful order unlawful for good."

At a news conference Friday afternoon alongside attorneys general from Washington, Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut, Platkin said Trump's birthright citizenship order was “one of the most blatantly unconstitutional orders ever signed by a president."

The justices, by a 6-3 vote, reversed an appeals court ruling that had struck down as unconstitutional the Universal Service Fund, the charge that has been added to phone bills for nearly 30 years.

At arguments in March, liberal and conservative justices alike expressed concerns about the potentially devastating consequences of eliminating the fund, which has benefited tens of millions of Americans.

The fee provides billions of dollars a year in subsidized phone and internet services in schools, libraries and rural areas. The Federal Communications Commission collects the money from telecommunications providers, which pass the cost on to their customers.

In a dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order has been deemed “patently unconstitutional” by every court that examined it.

So, instead of trying to argue that the executive order is likely constitutional, the administration “asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone,” Sotomayor wrote.

“The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempt to hide it,” she wrote. “Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along.”

A divided Supreme Court on Friday ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, but the decision left unclear the fate of President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship.

The outcome was a victory for the Republican president, who has complained about individual judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda.

But a conservative majority left open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked nationwide. Trump’s order would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally.