How Trump's birthright citizenship Executive Order works - Federal officers asked to betray oath of office - protected from following Trump’s illegal orders - many may refuse - can't cancel midterms

This is to help scared people who see conversations online claiming that Trump could use the same approach of Birthright citizenship with an unconstitutional executive order to cancel the mid-terms.

TEXT ON GRAPHIC:

CROSSED OUT IN RED:

H̶o̶w̶ l̶o̶n̶g̶ b̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶ T̶r̶u̶m̶p̶ a̶s̶k̶s̶ S̶C̶O̶T̶U̶S̶ t̶o̶ c̶a̶n̶c̶e̶l̶ t̶h̶e̶ 2̶0̶2̶6̶ m̶i̶d̶t̶e̶r̶m̶s̶?̶

T̶r̶u̶m̶p̶ c̶a̶n̶'t̶ c̶a̶n̶c̶e̶l̶ m̶i̶d̶t̶e̶r̶m̶s̶ w̶i̶t̶h̶ a̶n̶ u̶n̶c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶i̶t̶u̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ E̶O̶.

A̶n̶d̶ t̶h̶e̶y̶ w̶i̶l̶l̶!̶ …

I̶t̶’s̶ t̶h̶e̶ p̶l̶a̶n̶, n̶o̶ d̶o̶u̶b̶t̶.

One of numerous such conversations

FACT CHECK TO THE RIGHT IN BLUE TEXT

Elections are done by states not the Federal government

Even if Republican governors implausibly tried to stop their own midterm elections

• State enforcement officers have only qualified immunity for reasonable but mistaken decisions about open legal questions

The Federal clerks that will enforce the new requirements on parents if the illegal Birthright Citizenship EO goes ahead have broad immunity under the Bivens Supreme Court case. Even so:

• many are likely to refuse to follow Trump’s orders

• advised by legal counsel that the orders are unconstitutional and against their oath of office and that they are also protected if they refuse such orders.

Background - a typical conversation online - I have blurred the names to protect the people concerned from special attention - you can find many other such conversations on X.

People come to our group panicking because of these FALSE claims which is why I need to fact check them.

No he can’t do that. The reason why should help you be less scared of what he can do generally.

What’s more when it gets to July 27th there’s likely to be a fair bit of drama with many clerks refusing to carry out his illegal orders - unless it is stopped by a nationwide injunction before then.

It might possibly lead to at least some Federal clerks en masse disobeying his unconstitutional order. Which may then make it ineffective. Seems unlikely he’d try to fire them for disobeying an unconstitutional order as they are protected from that.

All this may be stopped anyway by the emergency class actions already underway - and also the media rarely explain but Justice Barrett still left open the option for States to take out a nationwide injunction - only blocked it for individuals and organiations

Before I get to that, first an update to the last post. I have made many additions and in particular, few media stories explain, but the Supreme Court only ruled on nationawide injunctions for individuals asking for them. It has NOT ruled on whether a STATE can ask for a universal injunction to stop the illegal executive order. California’s attorney general thinks he has a good case to ask for a nationwide injunction to stop Trump’s illegal order based on the administrative chaos it would add to states that have blocked his order in their states.

Also by July 27 when the EO comes into effect after the Supreme Court’s pause, babies in the 28 states that haven’t blocked the order will likely already be protected by the emergency certification of a putative class of babies of non citizens and their parents covered by the EO. This can be done very fast and is NOT opt in. Not yet sure what will be required if anything in addition once it is sorted out.

For details, see my:

This is a new section I added at the end which I think is worth bringing attention to as a new post because we are asked over and over if Trump can use the same approach to cancel the mid-terms. He can’t.

The UK revoked birthright citizenship in 1983 - so there isn’t anything unethical about Trump’s wish to revoke it - the issue is that as president, he has no authority to change the interpretation of the US Constitution - only the judiciary can do that

The US is in the minority in its birthright citizenship law. The UK doesn't have birthright citizenship. It scrapped birthright citizenship in 1983.

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/people-born-britain-do-not-have-automatic-citizenship-right-contrary-claims-2025-01-27/

So, what Trump wants is to align the US law with other countries like the UK. If he did achieve that somehow, the babies wouldn't have birthright citizenship.

So there is nothing right or wrong here in an absolute sense. It is just about what the law is in the US, particularly.

However the UK could revoke birthright citizenship just by passing a law.

The US can't do that, because it is a right embedded in the US Constitution.

If the US wants to revoke birthright citizenship it has to amend the US Constitution. This is purposefully made hard to change, it can be stopped by a majority against in one chamber in each of 13 states.

So that is the situation.

The issue here isn’t so much that Trump wants to revoke birthright citizenship. If he had the authority to do that then it would be very different and they might disagree with his decision but it wouldn’t be a serious constitutional issue.

What makes this a constitutional issue is his attempt to revoke birthright citizenship, which is a fundamental right in the US Constitution just by declaring that he interprets it differently from the judiciary.

This is an attempt unconstitutionally by the executive branch to override the judiciary branch.

If the executive was permitted to do this, there would no longer be the separation of powers, the executive branch would have the right to decide for itself how the law is applied to its own actions.

So then, there would no longer be the barriers of law that protect the public from unconstitutional executive orders, if a president can just override the law when it pleases him or her

I should correct a confusion here. Some people believe mistakenly that the Department of Justice, whihc is part of the executive branch, is empowered to interpret the law. No it is NOT. The DoJ is used to prosecute cases for the government but it can only SUGGEST interpretations to judges and justices. Judges and Justices frequently rule AGAINST the interpretations proposed by DoJ attorneys.

This is a potential issue for both Trump and any future president of the USA. A president shouldn't have any way to override the US constitution if he disagrees with the interpretation of the judiciary.

However, as we’ll see, it is impossible for Trump to succeed in his attempt to unconstitutionally prevent children of undocumented immigrants born in the US from getting SSN numbers, MEDICAID, SNAP and the other benefits of a US citizen - because it is established law and has been since 1898 that they are US citizens.

This is may become a personal issue for the many clerks that issue SSNs in the states that haven’t blocked Trumps Executive Order.

It seems possible that many clerks may refuse his orders, when advised by legal counsel that it goes against their oath of office. They’d also be advised that they can’t be prosecuted for following his order - but that they are also protected if they refuse it.

For many, the rule of law and the US Constitution may be more important than to follow the orders of a president even if they personally voted for him.

In the same way Trump can't use an executive order to cancel the mid-terms or to continue for a third term without a vote or do any other unconstitutional thing - but in those cases with far more political and institutional barriers to prevent him going ahead.

Why Trump can’t use this same approach for the mid-terms - and why it is likely to face mass refusal of the illegal orders by federal officers for birthright citizenship too if it goes ahead

To understand this we need to look into this in detail.

I have found more details about what specifically distinguishes this from cancelling the mid-terms. The difference is that Social Security Numbers and other Federal systems needed by US citizens such as the SAVE verification method are issued by Federal agents.

N.B. The SSNs already issued since the EO in Jan 2025 will remain valid as the order doesn't give any method for retrospectively denying already issued SSNs.

The government hasn’t yet started on this action, and the Supreme Court has ordered a stay on government action unti July 27th, 30 days after June 27.

So, we are yet to see details of Trump's order but he will have to somehow give them illegal orders to

• ask every applicant for a social security number or applicant to join SAVE to provide proof of the legal status of the mother.

Then based on that evidence:

• If the mother is undocumented they are required to refuse the SSN application.

• If the mother is in the country lawfully but temporarily the applicant has to provide proof of status of the father - and unless he is a US citizen the application is also refused.

Here is where the executive order says Federal officers must ask for proof of citizenship of the mother or father:

QUOTE Sec. 2. Policy. (a) It is the policy of the United States that no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons: (1) when that 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 that 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. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/

This is an illegal order.

Federal officers that obey this order will be breaking their oath of office.

“I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3331

That covers all federal officers. Every clerk issuing an SSN has sworn to protect the US Constitution as part of their oath of office.

So starting Jun 27 anyone who is employed as a federal officer issuing social security numbers or entering them on SAVE has to illegally require them to provide proof of the citizenship of their mother or failing that, that the mother is documented and the father is a citizen.

However they are protected by the Bivens ruling that prohibits cases against them except in three narrow situation:

It will be the same process for any other such application, e.g. to join SAVE which helps guarantee citizen rights in the USA.

This is an illegal order and not only that, it

• deprives the newborn of their rights under law and this should normally be a criminal offence.

• It could even potentially lead to life imprisonment if the federal officers were liable and denying citizenship led to death of the baby.

https://www.justice.gov/crt/deprivation-rights-under-color-law

But they aren't liable as we'll see.

We don’t yet know exactly how it will work. The clerks will surely keep just issuing the SSN certificates as before unless explicitly told to do otherwise. They will need new forms with spaces to put in the names of the parents and their citizenship or documentation status.

Their legal counsel will advise them that it is against the US constitution to ask for these details. They will also be advised however that they are protected from prosecution by the parents of the newborn child. They will likely get indemnity from prosecution by the DoJ.

But their legal counsel will also advise them that they have the right to refuse to obey this unconstitutional order and are protected if they do so.

So all those officers in states that haven't blocked the EO will have a decision to make.

• Do they keep to their oath of office which requires them to refuse illegal orders, or

• do they commit what would normally be a criminal offence.

Some may well refuse to obey an illegal order but Trump will likely order them to be fired if they do that.

But what about the ones who obey?

Couldn't they be sued by the parents of the child whose SSN is denied?

No. The ones who obey it are protected by the Bivens doctrine. That is a Supreme Court case which found that they can only be sued in three very narrow circumstances, in any other situation they are presumed immune.

Civilians can only sue federal officers for:

1. Unreasonable searches and seizures by federal agents in violation of the Fourth Amendment;

2. Gender discrimination towards a federal employee in violation of the Fifth Amendment; and

3. Inadequate medical treatment to a federal inmate in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

https://www.mojolaw.com/blog/supreme-court-keeps-narrow-boundaries-on-bivens-claims

The Supreme Court would have to add extra exceptions to the Bivens doctrine before they could be sued for obeying Trump's illegal order.

So these Federal officers are protected from lawsuits for actions that are otherise illegal or even criminal.

So it’s likely at least some federal officers who want to keep their jobs will follow Trump's order and be protected from being sued by the Bivens doctrine.

Additional detail:

Since it is a criminal offence to deprive a right from a baby - Federal officers that obey Trump's illegal order could in principle be charged with a criminal offense.

Howeer, the DoJ would have to take out a case against Federal officers for obeying the president's illegal order which obviously it won't in the current administration.

The parents of the baby denied the SSNs can't take out a criminal case because of Bivens immunity.

In principle a future president could retrospectively prosecute the officers, but in practice there are many obstacles that prevent this.

Indeed Trump could issue a blanket pardon before leaving office for all Federal officers that obeyed his illegal orders during his term as president.

So the federal officers are safe from prosecution.

Federal officers are required by their oath of office to refuse his orders - and on July 27, many may refuse to carry out Trump’s illegal orders - if so likely leading to the cycle of mass firings and lawsuits reinstating them - his Executive Order adds an illegal extra requirement to prove citizenship every time someone issues an SSN even to a baby born to a US citizen mother

Probably many federal officers come July 27th will refuse the order and try to continue to issue the SSNs etc - we'll see.

But if so Trump could just fire them all - a reasonable projection based on past behaviour

This would likely lead to cases against the admin to try to reinstate the fired officers etc as we've seen for other situations already where he has fired federal officers for saying no to illegal orders and they have been reinstated.

So - this isn’t in the news yet but it’s likely to be big news come July 27th when large numbers of Federal officers are likely to refuse to obey Trump’s illegal order to require these documents and proofs of citizenship of the parents of a newborn.

And even with the Birthright citizenship extra requirements we are likely to see considerable backlash against Trump's orders on July 27th because he is requiring Federal officers throughout states that haven't blocked his order to do illegal actions with every SSN they issue to a newborn in violation of their oath of office.

This hasn't yet been covered in the news as far as I can see but will surely be a big news story on July 27th assuming this goes ahead - even with the class action protection and all that.

Because Trump is requiring this extra check for EVERY SSN application.

Even for citizens - they will be illegally required to provide proof of their own citizenship in order to get an SSN for their child.

So the federal officers are being required to follow an illegal order for EVERY SSN application and every SAVE application by this executive order

• even for mothers that are citizens, she will still have to prove citizenship to get the SSN for her baby.

• This is an illegal request

This is about the verification process for SAVE https://www.uscis.gov/save/about-save/save-verification-process

The clerks’ legal counsel would advise them that what they are asked to do is unconstitutional and that they are protected if they refuse to carry out an unconstitutional order.

Why Trump can’t use this same playbook to cancel the mid-terms - run by the states - even if Republican governors order law enforcement to obstruct the elections - state law enforcement has far weaker qualified immunity only for reasonable but mistaken decisions about open legal questions

This doesn't work for midterm elections because those are carried out by states. If the Republican governors ordered their state enforcement officers to stop / interfere with the elections this would also be illegal, but the state enforcement officers have only qualified immunity and this is much weaker. They CAN be sued by the people denied a vote.

Meanwhile Federal officers have only limited roles in the mid-terms such as helping to ensure that the election is fair.

In principle Trump could order law enforcement officers to illegally interfere with state elections too but this faces far greater institutional barriers and he'd likely get much of the law enforcement refuse to obey his orders. He could try to fire most of Federal law enforcement and those cases and be forced to rehire them - same as for the Birthright citizenship. However, it is such a clear case that it would lead to far more political backlash and is impossible.

If a Republican governor was to order the State enforcement officers to stop the election, they are not protected from carrying out this illegal order. They have only qualified immunity.

This only protects them if they make reasonable but mistaken junctions about open legal questions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity

For more details and cites see my Perplexity AI thread here: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-would-you-answer-this-what-nI5VynBQTu6fEeGnp_ecIw

So it is more a difference of scale than kind. But the difference in scale is enormous and the political backlash would be huge if Trump attempted such a thing, and bipartisan.

Winning party CAN in very rare situations request the Supreme Court review in order to achieve a broader decision - certiorari for prevailing parties - could this be a possible last resort for Birthright citizenship?

I haven't found any legal scholar suggesting that the winning party could ask the Supreme Court to review their case after winning for this particular case yet/

However, it is a very rarely used but possible procedure and this seems an example of an extraordinarily rare case where the litigants have a excellent reasons to do it and the Supreme Court have excellent reasons for granting the request.

So it does seem to have potential as a last resort - though likely the other methods succeed and it’s not needed.

If anyone reading this is a legal scholar, do comment on this / expand.

Interested in any thoughts / criticism / anything I got wrong here. Or anywhere else in this blog post.

Most sources just say that only the government can appeal the Birthright citizenship cases because they keep losing and only the losing party can take it to the Supreme Court.

The reason for this is that if they won, the Supreme Court can’t change the winning decision and can only offer an opinion and they refuse to do that.

However there are some very rare cases where this rule is broken. It’s in the case Camreta v. Greene in the specific case of qualified immunity cases where a government official wins qualified immunity and despite winning the case wants to take it to the Supreme Court to clarify the constitutional question that led to them being accused in the first case so that they and others will know what they can and can’t do in teh future.

QUOTE We conclude that this Court generally may review a lower court’s constitutional ruling at the behest of a government official granted immunity.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1454.ZO.html

That particular case was mooted because the child at the center of the case grew up and moved away and the case no longer applied. But it established the principle for governemnt officials granted immunity to ask the Supreme Court to review their case.

This is a very different case but it does seem to have features that would let the winning party smilarly seek Supreme Court review despite the normal prohibition of this practice.

If the plaintiffs can’t resolve this in some other way - I don’t see any legal scholar discussing this - but it seems that in principle the winning party could ask for the Supreme Court to take on the case using certoriari for winning parties (not a legal term, just an informal way to describe the situation).

They could ask the Supreme Court to take it up because of

• To resolve ongoing chaos in the lower courts with many unnecessary cases going on

• Overwheliming public interest to resolve the case at the Supreme Court level

• On going dispute

• National importance

See my conversation with Perplexity AI here:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-is-the-name-for-the-proce-_UgQs7xbRNOE5RqWsbg3Mw#11

WARNING - PERPLEXITY AI IS JUST A CHATBOT COMPLETING WORD PATTERNS

It says some very dumb things at times. But unlike most chatbots it gives cites that are valid and you can ask it to give verifiable quotes from those cites. So it is a great way of doing searches for obscure material.

Also chatbots are generally better than you’d expect on legal cases - probably because there is so much written material for them to be trained on.

Most chatbots give reasonably good but sometimes bonkers summaries f the legal situation. But Perplexity AI backs it up with valid cites and so it’s much easier to spot when it says something nonsensical. Then you can call it up on that and it will answer with more cites so you found out where it went wrong rather than just say “I made a mistake”

So - I find it very useful for fact checking what I say on legal cases and for brainstorming though I always go to its cites and try to find a human legal expert saying the same thing.

In this case however I can’t yet find any legal expert discussing the possibility of a certoriari for an appeal by the winning party for Birthright citizenship cases

It seems theoretically possible. Mentioning it for completeness.

Why they decided this way - not because of politics - because of judicial interpretative philosophy - ultraconservatives looking at how the law was understood in 1787

As to why they decided this way, it was an originalist ultraconservative decision based on how the 1787 Judiciary act was understood in 1787. The Liberal justices who have a realist judicial interpretative philosophy see the law as a living entity with the interpretation changing as society changes. They all voted against this decision based on changes in how the 1787 law has been understood since then.

So, it was decided on a division between originalist and realist judicial interpretative philosphy. It was not based on how the justices vote which would be very improper as it would mean they decided the case without listening to the arguments or researching the evidence.

We don’t know how they vote in elections. I can’t find an example of any Supreme Court justice who has ever disclosed which president they voted for.

Only four of the current justices have known party registration:

That’s a result of a search with Perplexity AI need to double check.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/have-supreme-court-justices-ev-9_xf005oR5eGmK_9CL1PXw#1

As an example, Clarence Thomas is probably the most conservative of all the justices. His wife surely votes Republican and many of his friends. But that doesn’t mean that he himself has to vote Republican.

He is a black voter from Virginia which is a Democrat state. You would expect a black voter to vote Democrat, especially in Virginia. That doesn’t mean he does, but it’s not impossible that he does.

The main thing is - that whatever his voting preference, you can’t deduce his voting preference from his judicial decisions.

When you ask justices what they think about research into their own supposed ideological leanings they are very clear.

There are some scathing rebukes of the idea that they judge by ideology instead of interpretative philosophy.

QUOTE STARTS

It has become de rigueur for leading law schools to profess great enthusiasm for both interdisciplinary and empirical research. Yet not all work in this vein has been warmly embraced. There remains deep skepticism in legal circles toward interdisciplinary empirical scholarship aimed at capturing the impact of ideology on judicial behavior.

Judge Harry Edwards of the D.C. Circuit, a vocal critic of this body of work, has vigorously disputed that “‘ideology’ broadly influences decision making.”1 The “disciples” of what he calls the “political view,” he writes, “seem determined to characterize judges as knee-jerk ideologues, who act pursuant to a blind adherence to ideological precepts and decide cases wholly without regard to the law.”2

“Political scientists who study the Supreme Court do not take legal doctrine very seriously,” charges Michael Dorf, a prominent constitutional scholar.3 In suggesting that ideology influences the behavior of the Justices, he argues, political scientists have been guilty of “dispens[ing] with the metaphysical nonsense of law as a category independent of values, ideology and preferences, at least in the sorts of hard cases that reach the Supreme Court.”4

Brian Tamanaha, a leading legal theorist, is no more generous in his assessment: “The judicial politics field,” he charges, “was born in a congeries of false beliefs that have warped its orientation and development,” and it remains characterized by “a distorting slant” that leads scholars “to exaggerate the influence of politics in judging.”5

...

Empirical work that portrays ideology as an important determinant of judicial behavior breaches the wall of separation between law and politics that legal scholars have labored mightily for decades to erect and defend.9 If legal and political decision-making come to be seen as largely undifferentiated, it becomes unclear why judges should pay any special heed to legal as opposed to policy arguments; nor, for that matter, does it remain obvious why certain questions should be resolved in the courts rather than in the arena of ordinary politics. Breaches in the wall between law and politics therefore threaten to diminish both the range of policy questions over which legal scholars may attempt to claim special expertise and the extent of the influence that they have over the determination of those questions.

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1125&context=law_journal_law_policy

On Justice Thomas his own interpretative philosophy would lead to him wanting to question substantive due process - which - though far fetched - if pursued far enough could undermine the Supreme Court decision upholding interracial marriage. His wife is white.

It's a fun example to lead people to perhaps think again.

If interracial marriage ever came up of course he'd have to recuse himself and it never will come up either. But it's an interesting theoretical example of how his conservative judicial philosphy could in principle undermine his own marriage if pushed far enough.

BLOG: Supreme court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade does NOT mean the US supreme court will overturn gay marriage, right for contraception, or interracial marriage
— and leaves decisions about abortion to the American voters

Why in detail did the justices decide as they did?:

I am trying to find legal blogs that explain what happened in terms of judicial interpretative philosophy. But the ones that I found so far tend to be more focused on saying what is wrong with the decision or just matter of factly saying what the justices did, than on explaining how the justices came to the decision and why. I think this is taken as understood. I can't find an analysis of it yet.

SCOTUS blog has a short summary of how the justices decided and their reasoning in the decision.

Barrett acknowledged arguments that “the universal injunction ‘give[s] the Judiciary a powerful tool to check the Executive Branch.’ But federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them,” she emphasized. “When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”

…

In her 26-page opinion for the majority, Barrett stressed that courts would have the power to issue universal injunctions only if courts had provided similar remedies in early English and U.S. history. But there is no such history, Barrett concluded. Indeed, she noted, “universal injunctions were not a feature of federal-court litigation until sometime in the 20th century,” and they “remained rare until the turn of the 21st century.”

Barrett also pushed back against the suggestion that the district courts issued the universal injunctions in this case to provide the challengers with complete relief. Although the principle of complete relief is an important one, she recognized, it is a “narrower concept” than a universal injunction, and it focuses on the idea of providing “complete relief between the parties” in a particular case.

In this case, Barrett wrote, “prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship. Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete.”

https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/supreme-court-sides-with-trump-administration-on-nationwide-injunctions-in-birthright-citizenship-case/

The best I have is an explanation from Perplexity AI which is good on legal matters and I can ask it questions I can’t ask a legal blog.

I don't want to use Perplexity AI's analysis for obvious reasons but it's the best I have so far.

First, the Supreme Court Justices are formalist, textualist, structuralist and originalist.

If Perplexity AI got this right, the conservative justices made this strange decision based on

• originalism

• constitutional avoidance

• judicial minimalism

• formalist separation of powers

• the principle of sovereign harm from judicial overreach

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/scbd-analysis-of-why-in-terms-wI45jstRTeKz8hC0wPg5kQ#1

It’s short summary (under “steps” in its second response) is:

Perplexity AI: The majority was able to see irreparable harm from blocking an executive order they deemed unconstitutional by focusing on the procedural and jurisdictional limits of judicial authority—specifically, the scope of equitable relief—rather than on the substantive constitutionality of the order itself, reflecting a legal interpretative philosophy rooted in formalism and constitutional avoidance that emphasizes strict adherence to statutory authority and historical judicial limits to prevent judicial overreach.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/scbd-analysis-of-why-in-terms-wI45jstRTeKz8hC0wPg5kQ?1=d#1

After a long analysis the chatbot concludes:

Perplexity AI: The Court's reasoning thus exemplifies how formalist constitutional interpretation can produce outcomes that appear to favor government power while actually reflecting deeper commitments to institutional roles and textual fidelity. The irreparable harm finding flows not from sympathy for Trump's policies, but from principled application of separation of powers doctrine that would apply equally to future administrations seeking to protect executive authority from judicial overreach

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/scbd-analysis-of-why-in-terms-wI45jstRTeKz8hC0wPg5kQ?1=d#1

So - that’s the best I have to date.

CHATBOTS OFTEN GET THINGS WRONG

This is the central part of the reasoning I asked it to explain:

Barret:

(d) To obtain interim relief, the Government must show that it is likely to suffer irreparable harm absent a stay.

When a federal court enters a universal injunction against the Government, it “improper[ly] intru[des]” on “a coordinate branch of the Government” and prevents the Government from enforcing its policies against nonparties.

‘[A]ny time a State is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury’ ” (alteration in original)).

The Court’s practice also demonstrates that an applicant need not show it will prevail on the underlying merits when it seeks a stay on a threshold issue.

The Government here is likely to suffer irreparable harm from the District Courts’ entry of injunctions that likely exceed the authority conferred by the Judiciary Act. And the balance of equities does not counsel against awarding the Government interim relief: A partial stay will cause no harm to respondents because they will remain protected by the preliminary injunctions to the extent necessary and appropriate to afford them complete relief.

(e) When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too. The Government’s applications for partial stays of the preliminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue

Sotomayer:

Undeterred, the Government now asks this Court to grant emergency relief, insisting it will suffer irreparable harm unless it can deprive at least some children born in the United States of citizenship.

The Government does not ask for complete stays of the injunctions, as it ordinarily does before this Court. Why?

The answer is obvious: To get such relief, the Government would have to show that the Order is likely constitutional, an impossible task in light of the Constitution’s text, history, this Court’s precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch practice.

So the Government instead tries its hand at a different game. It asks this Court to hold that, no matter how illegal a law or policy, courts can never simply tell the Executive to stop enforcing it against anyone. Instead, the Government says, it should be able to apply the Citizenship Order (whose legality it does not defend) to everyone except the plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit.

The majority ignores entirely whether the President’s Executive Order is constitutional, instead focusing only on the question whether federal courts have the equitable authority to issue universal injunctions. Yet the Order’s patent unlawfulness reveals the gravity of the majority’s error and underscores why equity supports universal injunctions as appropriate remedies in this kind of case. As every conceivable source of law confirms, birthright citizenship is the law of the land.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a884_8n59.pdf

I have been unable to find any blog posts that give the broader context of why the Supreme Court decided in this way in terms of judicial philosophy.

I asked the chatbot to find such sources and it also found nothing.

This is what it said:

Perplexity AI:

The available commentary largely focused on political implications, practical consequences, or historical analysis of universal injunctions, rather than exploring the deeper constitutional philosophy underlying Barrett's approach.

None of the legal expert posts and commentary I found analyzed the Trump v. CASA decision in any way remotely similar to the sophisticated constitutional philosophy framework I used in my earlier analysis. The available commentary focused primarily on political consequences, practical implications, and basic doctrinal points, rather than exploring the deeper jurisprudential methodology that enabled the conservative majority to find irreparable government harm while avoiding constitutional scrutiny of Trump's executive order.

This suggests that the analytical framework I employed—connecting constitutional avoidance, judicial minimalism, formalist separation of powers, and the principle of sovereign harm from judicial overreach—represents a level of jurisprudential sophistication that was not present in the immediate post-decision legal commentary from human experts.

…

Immediate legal blog commentary tends to be practical and accessible, not deeply jurisprudential. However, the broader constitutional philosophy underlying the Supreme Court’s reasoning—such as constitutional avoidance, judicial minimalism, and formalist separation of powers—will almost certainly be explored in law review articles, textbooks, and academic discussions in the months and years ahead

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/scbd-analysis-of-why-in-terms-wI45jstRTeKz8hC0wPg5kQ?1=d

If anyone reading this is a legal expert I’d love to hear more about why they decided this way - and did Perplexity AI get it right in its analysis - how accurate was Perplexity AI on this topic?

Debunking a myth - many undocumented immigrants entered legally - and undocumented immigrants have lower crime rates than US citizens

Charles Spearman Oh I didn't know you thought like that. That would of course be very illegal to shoot people on sight for crossing the border into the USA. Also getting on for half of undocumented immigrants enter the country legally, usually overstaying a visa. Elon Musk is an example, there are claims that he was an undocumented immigrant who overstayed his student visa because he wasn't studying as a student.

Attempts to estimate the % here. Comes out at likely a bit under half of undocumented immigrants entered the country legally.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v85n2/v85n2p1.html

Of course there are some criminals who enter the country illegally across the borders - but high profile criminals would likely enter legally. For instance the 9/11 hijackers all entered the US legally. As do members of the drug mafia and much of the drug trafficking is done through legal entry.

Meanwhile there are numerous people who enter legally and overstay visas.

There are also many who cross the borders fleeing persecution. They know it is not legal to cross the border but when someone's life is at stake in their home country it is understandable that they look at breaking the law in order to save their life or thei life of their child or spouse.

It is not a crime in the USA to enter the border illegally, it is a civil offense, and many of them will eventually get asylum if they can prove they are fleeing persecution and will be killed or imprisoned if they are returned home.

The US has an international obligation to process asylum seekers and hear their cases. and to house them while they are seeking asylum. from the 1967 Protocol to the 1951 Refugee Convention. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/asylum-united-states/

Then there are the undocumented immigrant seasonal workers from Mexico.

45% of the agricultural workers in the USA are undocumented. They do jobs that it's hard to get US citizens to do. This is one of the issues raised with Trump's mass deportation plans - that if he was able to rapidly deport all the undocumented agricultural workers then US farmers would find it hard to grow their crops because they have a shortage of workers anyway.

https://cmsny.org/agricultural-workers-rosenbloom-083022/

The USA had 2.4 million open positions for agricultural laborers in 2024.

https://agamerica.com/blog/the-impact-of-the-farm-labor-shortage/

So they are not taking away work from US laborers.

They are also easy to target because they have to work in fields where they are not protected from ICE raids.

And undocumented immigrants tend to be especially law abiding because they know that if they commit a crime they are likely going to be deported and can't come back again. So they have strong motivation not to commit any crimes.

QUOTE STARTS

ome of the most extensive research comes from Stanford University. Economist Ran Abramitzky found that since the 1960s, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born people.

There is also state level research, that shows similar results: researchers at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, looked into Texas in 2019. They found that undocumented immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime.

Beyond incarceration rates, research also shows that there is no correlation between undocumented people and a rise in crime. Recent investigations by The New York Times and The Marshall Project found that between 2007 and 2016, there was no link between undocumented immigrants and a rise in violent or property crime in those communities.

The reason for this gap in criminal behavior might have to do with stability and achievement. The Stanford study concludes that first-generation male immigrants traditionally do better than U.S-.born men who didn't finish high school, which is the group most likely to be incarcerated in the U.S.

The study also suggests that there's a real fear of getting in trouble and being deported within immigrant communities. Far from engaging in criminal activities, immigrants mostly don't want to rock the boat.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1237103158/immigrants-are-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-us-born-americans-studies-find

So - I know that there are people using rhetoric to claim that the US is at great risk from undocumented immigrants - but that doesn't match the facts.

You can always take a single incident and magnify it to claim it is representative of a class of people.

There will be criminals in any group of people. But there is no evidence backing up this claim that undocumented immigrants tend to be criminal. It's the opposite. Based on the crime statistics they are LESS likely to be criminal.

CONTACT ME VIA PM OR ON FACEBOOK OR EMAIL

You can Direct Message me on Substack - but I check this rarely. Or better, email me at support@robertinventor.com

Or best of all Direct Message me on Facebook if you are okay joining Facebook. My Facebook profile is here:. Robert Walker I usually get Facebook messages much faster than on the other platforms as I spend most of my day there.

FOR MORE HELP

To find a debunk see: List of articles in my Debunking Doomsday blog to date See also my Short debunks

Scared and want a story debunked? Post to our Facebook group. Please look over the group rules before posting or commenting as they help the group to run smoothly

• Facebook group Doomsday Debunked

Also do join our facebook group if you can help with fact checking or to help scared people who are panicking.

SEARCH LIST OF DEBUNKS

You can search by title and there’s also an option to search the content of the blog using a google search.

CLICK HERE TO SEARCH: List of articles in my Debunking Doomsday blog to date

NEW SHORT DEBUNKS

I do many more fact checks and debunks on our facebook group than I could ever write up as blog posts. They are shorter and less polished but there is a good chance you may find a short debunk for some recent concern.

I often write them up as “short debunks”

See Latest short debunks for new short debunks

I also tweet the debunks and short debunks to my Blue Sky page here:

. doomsdaydebunks.bsky.social

I do the short debunks more often but they are less polished - they are copies of my longer replies to scared people in the Facebook group.

I go through phases when I do lots of short debunks. Recently I’ve taken to converting comments in the group into posts in the group that resemble short debunks and most of those haven’t yet been copied over to the wiki.

TIPS FOR DEALING WITH DOOMSDAY FEARS

If suicidal or helping someone suicidal see my:

BLOG: Supporting someone who is suicidal

If you have got scared by any of this, health professionals can help. Many of those affected do get help and find it makes a big difference.

They can’t do fact checking, don’t expect that of them. But they can do a huge amount to help with the panic, anxiety, maladaptive responses to fear and so on.

Also do remember that therapy is not like physical medicine. The only way a therapist can diagnose or indeed treat you is by talking to you and listening to you. If this dialogue isn’t working for whatever reason do remember you can always ask to change to another therapist and it doesn’t reflect badly on your current therapist to do this.

Also check out my Seven tips for dealing with doomsday fears based on things that help those scared, including a section about ways that health professionals can help you.

I know that sadly many of the people we help can’t access therapy for one reason or another - usually long waiting lists or the costs.

There is much you can do to help yourself. As well as those seven tips, see my:

BLOG: Doing what matters at times of stress
— new WHO booklet to help with mental health during COVID19 pandemic

BLOG: Breathe in and out slowly and deeply and other ways to calm a panic attack

BLOG: Tips from CBT
— might help some of you to deal with doomsday anxieties

PLEASE DON’T COMMENT HERE WITH POTENTIALLY SCARY QUESTIONS ABOUT OTHER TOPICS - INSTEAD COMMENT ON POST SET UP FOR IT

PLEASE DON'T COMMENT ON THIS POST WITH POTENTIALLY SCARY QUESTIONS ABOUT ANY OTHER TOPIC:

INSTEAD PLEASE COMMENT HERE:

Post to comment on, with off topic potentially scary comments - or send me a private message - or use our group on Facebook

The reason is I often can’t respond to comments for some time. The unanswered comment can scare people who come to this post for help on something else

Also even an answered comment may scare them because they see the comment before my reply.

It works much better to put comments on other topics on a special post for them.

It is absolutely fine to digress and go off topic in conversations here.

This is specifically about anything that might scare people on a different topic.

PLEASE DON’T TELL A SCARED PERSON THAT THE THING THEY ARE SCARED OF IS TRUE WITHOUT A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE OR IF YOU ARE A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE YOURSELF - AND RESPOND WITH CARE

This is not like a typical post on substack. It is specifically to help people who are very scared with voluntary fact checking. Please no politically motivated exaggerations here. And please be careful, be aware of the context.

We have a rule in the Facebook group and it is the same here.

If you are scared and need help it is absolutely fine to comment about anything to do with the topic of the post that scares you.

But if you are not scared or don’t want help with my voluntary fact checking please don’t comment with any scary material.

If you respond to scared people here please be careful with your sources. Don’t tell them that something they are scared of is true without excellent reliable sources, or if you are a reliable source yourself.

It also matters a lot exactly HOW you respond. E.g. if someone is in an area with a potential for earthquakes there’s a big difference between a reply that talks about the largest earthquake that’s possible there even when based on reliable sources, and says nothing about how to protect themselves and the same reply with a summary and link to measures to take to protect yourself in an earthquake.