A perfect storm is when multiple, normally separate systems combine and intensify each other, resulting in a catastrophic event far more severe than any one system. By joining a lawless Executive Branch and a complicit Congress, the Supreme Court, through today’s horrible decision is creating a catastrophic event in this country. Traditional Legal Scholars will argue today’s SCOTUS decision addressing whether federal district courts can issue nationwide injunctions on executive orders is simply procedural and doesn’t address the merit or constitutionality of Trump’s executive order to strip citizens. But they are telling you a half truth. Yes, the Court seemingly examined only the legality of the scope of a Federal District Court’s ability to issue an injunction, which is an equitable remedy designed to prevent harm while a case is being adjudicated. But what they are hiding is that a federal district court can only offer injunctive relief to the person who filed the case. As of today, the Trump administration can now freely begin limiting the citizenship of millions of Americans with the stroke of the pen, even though the executive order is clearly unconstitutional.
To make it plain, as Justice Sotomayor hints her dissent, with this decision, the Trump administration could arguably issue an executive order openly barring Black and Brown people, women or any marginalized group from voting, and no federal court could nationally stop it; the court could only stop it for the person who filed the case. Unless it is a certified class, which every attorney will admit is not easy, all other people affected by the lawless and unconstitutional behavior of a rogue Executive Branch would be powerless to stop it, unless they too file a case. This is ridiculous and unreasonable, and SCOTUS knows it.
While people of good will of all races, ethnicities and genders, have worked over the past fifty years to make America into a multicultural democracy, others with nostalgic visions of a pre-slavery America or southern confederate past have been working to build a Supreme Court, a Congress, and Executive Branch that would move this country back to a place where citizenship is only afforded to a few, a time when the 14th amendment, which gave citizenship to the formerly enslaved, does not guarantee citizenship to all who are born on this land. This case is not a procedural case at all; it is, as Trump exclaimed, a hard hit to birthright citizenship. Equally, it is an act of a rogue court that is too cowardly to explicitly state what they are really doing, permitting a lawless administration to commit unlawful acts against its citizens.
But a rogue SCOTUS, Executive Branch, and complicit Congress never stopped Black people from moving forward and creating the democracy we want. As a community, we remember SCOTUS issuing the Dred Scott decision which tried to limit our citizenship rights in this country. Through our work, and the work of Indigenous, Brown, Jewish, White, AAPI, and Muslims throughout history, we met their destructively perfect storm with a whirlwind of our own. In doing so, we gained full citizenship and political rights in this country while simultaneously strengthening the rights of all. And we are not going back. Our fight for a just nation, one that shares power and resources with ALL who are born and reside here, is a righteous fight, and like before, we will win. No SCOTUS can stop that. Respectfully, and when necessary, non-respectfully, we dissent!