from setting mine alight, so before I get too close to the flames I'll read the actual opinion as objectively as I can. News reports, and especially headlines, often get things wrong, sort of like preliminary bomb damage assessments - and then the inaccurate/oversimplified headlines set those coiffures ablaze. I think an important point is that there won't be the wholesale deportation of everyone born in the US to an undocumented immigrant. Even by the terms of Trump's clearly unconstitutional EO, that won't happen because it refers to only two situations: " (1) when [a] person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when [a] person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth." It also provides for a 30-day ramp up; since the EO was dated January 20, 2025 (he could hardly wait!), so it didn't go into effect until February 20. In other words, the only people it purports to deny citizenship to are those born after February 20 to certain (not all) non-citizen parents. So there's one hair-conflagration that can be put out. The obvious problem with the case is that it requires potential plaintiffs to sue individually, although as of today there seems to be a class action in the works, which might solve that dilemma.
What I consider to be the case's weakness isn't that the court found nationwide injunctions to be historically unfounded; it's the rigid originalism that didn't allow it to find an exception for a situation Congress could not have anticipated when enacting the Judiciary Act 200+ years ago - which is the modern use of broad executive orders, and in this case to circumvent the Constitution. In fact, executive orders weren't even a thing in those days (the Emancipation Proclamation was an EO of a sort, but they were otherwise almost unheard-of until the 20th century). Barrett also interpreted the equitable principle relating to the inadequacy of a remedy at law, which is needed for injunctive relief, narrowly, apparently concluding that the availability of litigation in other courts would provide that remedy, where as a practical matter requiring separate litigation in each case where constitutional rights are at stake is a pretty flimsy remedy. She did toss the bone of a class action, though, and we'll see where that goes. And as I said before, the positive result of this case is the effective sidelining of that asshole in Texas.
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