Supreme Court’s Birthright Citizenship Ruling Is ‘Enormous Win’ for Trump and ‘Death Blow to the Rule of Law,’ MSNBC Legal Analyst Says
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on Friday that limits nationwide injunctions against President Trump’s executive orders — including one EO ending birthright citizenship — is a “death blow to the rule of law,” according to one MSNBC legal analyst.
Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University, shared the comment just minutes after the decision was made on Friday while appearing on MSNBC’s “Ana Cabrera Reports.”
Murray said the ruling was a “huge win” for the president, allowing him to target “undocumented persons” without “the benefit of due process.” “The court has essentially kneecapped lower courts from stopping this administration when it engages in lawless and unconstitutional behavior,” she added.
MSNBC’s coverage followed the Supreme Court’s ruling that curtailed the ability for federal judges to temporarily pause executive orders. The ruling did not make a decision on the legality of President Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship, however.
President Trump signed EO 14160 in January, which said citizenship should not be granted automatically to people born in the U.S. The president said at the time that the Fourteenth Amendment was “noble” and “meant for the children of slaves,” but not meant to grant citizenship to everyone born on American soil.
“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” the president’s executive order stated. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”
EO 14160 was thwarted soon after it was signed, with multiple federal judges issuing national preliminary injunctions to stop it from being enforced.
MSNBC, during its Friday coverage, included text from the Supreme Court decision, which was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, on the screen.
“Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them,” the ruling noted. “When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted lawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”
Soon after Murray gave her thoughts on the decision, former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg agreed it was a big win not only for President Trump, but all presidents moving forward.
“I would think of it in a slightly different way — a huge victory for the Executive Branch and the office of the president,” he said. “If a Democrat is president, the same rule applies. If a Democratic president issues an executive order, one federal judge in one federal district, under this ruling, could not enjoin that ruling nationwide.”
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