“No Right is SAFE”—Blow to the 14th AMENDMENT?

Symone Sanders Townsend didn’t hold back as she lambasted the Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, calling it downright “insane.”

At a Glance

  • The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has curbed the power of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions.
  • The ruling dissolves the injunction that had blocked President Trump’s executive order aiming to limit birthright citizenship.
  • The majority opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not rule on the legality of the order itself, only on the scope of judicial remedies.
  • Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a fiery dissent, warning the decision creates a “zone of lawlessness” where “no right is safe.”

A “Crazy” and “Insane” Decision

MSNBC host and former Kamala Harris advisor Symone Sanders Townsend delivered a blistering on-air critique of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to lift the nationwide injunction blocking President Trump’s birthright citizenship order, calling the situation “insane.”

“I just don’t—I can’t believe that we are asking the question, ‘is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution constitutional?’ That is what it is; it is crazy,” Sanders Townsend said, according to Fox News. “They are asking us not to believe our own eyes and our own ears. They’re asking us to go against everything that we know to be true. This is insane.” Her comments captured the outrage from progressives over a ruling they see as a dangerous expansion of executive power.

A Narrow Ruling with a Major Impact

In the 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority did not rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s underlying executive order. Instead, the opinion, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, focused narrowly on the power of lower courts to issue remedies. “The applications do not raise—and thus we do not address—the question whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act,” Barrett wrote. “The issue before us is one of remedy.”

The court concluded that individual federal judges do not have the authority to issue “universal injunctions” that block a federal policy across the entire country. While the legal question of the executive order’s validity remains, the practical effect of the ruling is that the policy can now be implemented nationwide while it is being challenged in the courts.

Sotomayor’s Dissent: “No Right Is Safe”

The court’s three liberal justices issued a searing dissent penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She argued that by removing the ability of courts to issue broad injunctions, the majority was giving the government “permission to engage in unlawful behavior” on a massive scale.

She warned that the decision creates a “zone of lawlessness” where potentially unconstitutional policies can harm millions while legal challenges slowly make their way through different courts on a case-by-case basis. “No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was detailed by MSNBC. The ruling has set the stage for a new and uncertain era in the balance between judicial review and executive power.