The Trump administration is celebrating last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that restricted judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. But the White House had better keep its legal tools sharpened, because the court battle is far from over. In fact, the high court's ruling likely opens the door to multiple new legal questions and battles.
For starters, the Supreme Court left a loophole in its ruling. While the court ruled that judges can't issue individual injunctions, they can still issue "class action" rulings. Right on cue, left wing groups like the ACLU have already amended their lawsuits against Trump policies as class action suits. "These rogue judges, who have already been issuing these injunctions, are going to try to get around this by willy-nilly certifying classes of plaintiffs," says Hans Von Spakovsky, legal analyst with the Heritage Foundation. "In other words, they're gonna say, well, everyone in the country is affected by this as a class action."
"So while this is a big victory, I'm afraid the Justice Department is gonna be back before the Supreme Court again, this time saying these judges are violating the rules on class certification."
The other issue still on the table is the core question of the underlying case that was before the court: Does the president have the legal authority to restrict birthright citizenship? "This case will get back to the Supreme Court, but the next time it's probably going to be dealing with the actual substantive merits---is President Trump correctly interpreting the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment," says Von Spakovsky. "I think he is, but the lower courts so far have said he isn't."