The Tip Of The Birthright Citizenship Iceberg Floats Towards The Supreme Court

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear arguments related to President Trump’s executive order that purports to white out the guarantee of birthright citizenship from the Constitution.

These arguments will focus on a narrow facet: whether district judges properly issued universal injunctions against the order, or rulings that block a policy or law for the whole country and not just the plaintiffs who brought the suit. 

In an abrupt 180 from the Biden administration, the right has turned against this type of relief as judges have frequently levied it against Trump’s hurricane of executive orders. His allies in the House even recently passed a bill to limit federal judges’ power in this realm (though it’s unclear if it will go anywhere in the Senate). 

The Trump administration argues that it’s being disproportionately and unfairly hamstrung by an egregious number of these judicial blockades. The plaintiff, an organization that advocates for immigrant rights, says that argument only holds up if you ignore the context. 

“According to the Federal Register, President Trump has already issued more Executive Orders in the past six weeks than any President has in an entire year since President Truman in 1951, in the midst of the Korean War,” lawyers for CASA wrote.

Resenting universal injunctions when they’re used against a president you support is a bipartisan endeavor. Under Biden, Democrats were furious that antagonists like the state of Texas went back to divisions with only one or two right-wing judges over and over, all but guaranteeing blocked government action at last for a few months. Democrats, though, were less of a “blow it all up” bent. Many in Congress proposed various reforms, including routing petitions for universal injunctions against the federal government through the D.C. district court or three judge panels like those used in redistricting cases.

This piece of the case will have massive ramifications, particularly for the reach of Trump’s power. As Congress has abdicated its oversight powers, it’s left the courts as a singular bulwark against Trump’s power grabs. And these arguments are only the tip of the iceberg of the birthright citizenship litigation, where a win for Trump would shred the Constitution and renege on one of its most fundamental promises. 

— Kate Riga

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

• Josh Kovensky writes on Friday’s order in Rümeysa Öztürk’s case and the climate of fear the Trump administration is trying very hard to instill among non-citizens.
• Emine Yücel unpacks President Trump’s dramatic flip-flop this week: he reportedly spent a few hours dipping his toes into progressive politics (taxing the rich) only to reverse course on Truth Social a few hours later.
• Emine also checks in on disgraced former congressman George Santos, as he publicly pleads for Trump to grant him “a commutation, clemency, whatever”!

Let’s dig in

Tearing Up Campus

If you’re not a U.S. citizen, you’re already living in an authoritarian state.

Since Trump took office, many non-citizens present in the U.S. have been keeping opinions critical of the U.S. government to themselves, out of fear of retribution. The same goes for criticism of U.S. policy towards Israel — many are keeping quiet out of fear that the government will detain and remove them for expressing a dissenting opinion. They have good reason to feel this way: Trump administration officials have bragged about revoking visas of foreign students over their speech. Look at the emblematic case of Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk. Plainclothes ICE officers detained her on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts in March. She was promptly sent to immigration detention in Louisiana. The government has said that it revoked her visa and arrested her on the basis of an article that she co-wrote with three others for a Tufts student newspaper last year that was critical of Israel.

On Friday, a federal judge in Vermont (Öztürk was held there briefly before being moved to Louisiana) ordered her released.

The judge ruled that the case could suppress “the speech of millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens,” that they “may now avoid exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center,” and that, for those and other reasons, Öztürk’s “continued detention cannot stand.”

“There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed,” as to why she should continue to be detained, the judge ruled.

Öztürk’s release doesn’t restore her ability to be in the country. She still faces removal from the United States. It goes to the limited power of the courts: they can slow these cases down. In some instances, they can reverse clearly unlawful or capricious decisions. But you don’t have to look any further than what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said about the case in March to be reminded of the climate of fear they are trying very hard to instill among non-citizens: Öztürk had not been given a visa to “become a social activist that tears up our university campuses,” he said.

— Josh Kovensky

Trump Flirts With Taxing The Rich, Immediately Retreats

In a surprising move this week, President Donald Trump reportedly instructed Republican leadership to raise taxes on the rich, seemingly as part of a scheme to appease a group of Republicans who have balked at the way in which Trump’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill, as currently constituted, would increase the deficit.

Those instructions were seemingly short lived as shortly after, he casually tried to walk it back.

“Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!” Trump wrote in a Friday morning Truth Social post.

The back and forth comes as intraparty tensions spilled out into the open this week. Republicans are trying to figure out a way to put together a reconciliation package that includes all of Trump’s priorities without adding to the deficit. That’s proving to be a Herculean task.

Let’s put taxes to the side for a second. Another big question remains, leaving Republicans divided: how exactly will they enact sweeping cuts to Medicaid?

Vulnerable Republicans, aware of how unpopular these cuts will be back home, are continuing to insist they won’t support a reconciliation package that would include deep cuts to Medicaid. But a separate group in the House Republican conference jammed things up substantially this week, threatening to not vote for the bill if it adds to the federal deficit (which would be very difficult to do without massive cuts to the social safety net program).

The Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees cuts to Medicaid, is expected to meet Tuesday at 2 p.m ET to mark up its portion of the bill, according to a person familiar with the schedule.

— Emine Yücel

Words Of Wisdom

“I’ll take a commutation, clemency, whatever the president is willing to give me.”

That’s former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) publicly asking President Donald Trump for a get-out-of-jail-free card this week —- just two weeks after he was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.

In case you need a refresher, Santos is the embattled former lawmaker who lied and tricked his way into a congressional seat in 2022, as TPM helped uncover. He served in Congress for less than a year before he was expelled from the House by his colleagues. He pleaded guilty in August of last year to committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft to fund his campaign.

“Seven years and three months in prison for a first-time offender over campaign matters just screams ‘over the top,’ and I would appreciate if the president would consider,” Santos added.

We’ll see if the White House comes to the rescue for the disgraced former congressman who, in the words of his own lawyers, “everyone hates.”

— Emine Yücel