Politics
Legal experts pan Trump's Supreme Court appeal on birthright citizenship
WASHINGTON — Trump administration lawyers sent the Supreme Court an emergency appeal this week with a “modest” procedural request, not to uphold new limits on birthright citizenship but rather to narrow the scope of rulings that blocked the limits from taking effect.
It’s a move that surprised and puzzled many legal experts.
They questioned the practicality and the fairness of having a citizenship rule that applied at least temporarily in some parts of the country but not others.
“This is a terrible case to raise this issue,” said University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost. “Without a nationwide injunction, it would be chaos.”
She said pregnant women might have to cross state borders to ensure their babies were registered as citizens at birth. Judges might have to decide case by case on whether those birth registrations are proper.
Shortly after President Trump issued his executive order proposing to end birthright citizenship, three judges — in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state — declared the change unconstitutional nationwide. They ruled in cases brought on behalf of 22 states, including California, and several groups that represent immigrants.
“If ever a universal injunction makes sense, it’s in a case like this,” George Mason University saw professor Ilya Somin wrote in a blog post. “Nationwide lawbreaking by the federal government requires a nationwide remedy. And that’s especially true if the illegality affects the rights of large numbers of people, many of whom could not easily or quickly bring individual suits to challenge it.”
But Trump administration lawyers argued that district judges should not be allowed to issue rulings that apply nationwide. And they said the court should act now to rein in these judges.
If the justices were to agree, it could deny citizenship in much of the nation to children whose mothers were in the country without legal status.
“Years of experience have shown that the Executive Branch cannot properly perform its functions if any judge anywhere can enjoin every presidential action everywhere,” wrote acting Solicitor Gen. Sarah M. Harris. “The sooner universal injunctions are eliminated root and branch, the better.”
The justices, however, signaled they are not ready to move quickly. They set April 4 as a deadline for responses from the lawyers who won the rulings blocking Trump’s order on birthright citizenship.
In recent years, several justices have questioned the power of a single judge to hand down a ruling that applies nationwide.
Sometimes judges seek to “govern the whole nation from their courtrooms,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said last year.
Democrats complained when judges in Texas and Louisiana issued nationwide rulings to block Biden administration regulations.
Two years ago, a conservative judge in Amarillo, Texas, ordered a nationwide ban on abortion pills. The Supreme Court blocked his order and then overturned it entirely on the grounds that the antiabortion plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.
During Trump’s first term, Republicans complained when judges in San Francisco and New York blocked his regulations including the travel ban that halted visitors from several Muslim-majority counties.
Harris said the problem has grown worse.
“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current Administration,” she wrote. “District courts have issued more universal injunctions and [temporary restraining orders] during February 2025 alone than through the first three years of the Biden Administration.”
Much of the difference may be due to the unusual number of far-reaching executive orders issued in Trump’s first weeks in office.
This week’s appeals do not ask the court to weigh in on the underlying dispute over the meaning of the 14th Amendment adopted after the Civil War. It says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”
That rule of citizenship based on birth has been well-established and not seriously questioned in the courts.
But Trump and his supporters assert that some authors of the 14th Amendment did not think it extended to children born of women who are in the country temporarily.
Trump’s executive order, if it becomes law, would make two changes. It would deny citizenship to a child if the “person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States” and the father was not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident or if the mother was in the country legally but temporarily, such as on a student or tourist visa.
The administration’s appeal could allow those changes to take effect in a large part of the country.
But if the justices are not ready to uphold those changes, Harris proposed a fallback option.
The justices, she wrote, “at a minimum” should make clear the administration may develop and issue “guidance explaining how they would implement the Citizenship Order in the event that it takes effect.”
Politics
Video: Minnesota and Illinois Sue Trump Administration Over ICE Deployments
new video loaded: Minnesota and Illinois Sue Trump Administration Over ICE Deployments
transcript
transcript
Minnesota and Illinois Sue Trump Administration Over ICE Deployments
Minnesota and Illinois filed federal lawsuits against the Trump administration, claiming that the deployment of immigration agents to the Minneapolis and Chicago areas violated states’ rights.
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This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop. We ask the courts to end the D.H.S. unlawful behavior in our state. The intimidation, the threats, the violence. We ask the courts to end the tactics on our places of worship, our schools, our courts, our marketplaces, our hospitals and even funeral homes.
By Jackeline Luna
January 12, 2026
Politics
Rep Ro Khanna demands prosecution of ICE agent in Minneapolis fatal shooting
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Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., called for the arrest and prosecution of the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good in a residential neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota on Jan. 7.
Khanna also urged Congress to back his legislation with Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, to require ICE agents to wear body cameras, display visible identification, stop wearing masks during operations and be subject to independent oversight.
In a post shared on X, the former Obama administration official said: “I am calling for the arrest and prosecution of the ICE agent that shot and killed Renee Good.”
“I am also calling on Congress to support my bill with @JasmineForUS to force ICE agents to wear body cameras, not wear masks, have visible identification, and ensure ICE has independent oversight,” Khanna added.
MINNESOTA BUREAU OF CRIMINAL APPREHENSION DROPS OUT OF ICE-INVOLVED SHOOTING INVESTIGATION
An ICE agent shot and killed the 37-year-old Minneapolis woman during a federal enforcement operation in south Minneapolis. Federal officials have said agents were attempting to make arrests when the woman tried to use her vehicle as a weapon against officers, prompting an ICE agent to fire in self-defense.
Good’s death sparked widespread protests in Minneapolis and across the U.S. as demonstrators called for changes to federal immigration enforcement.
Renee Nicole Good moments before she was shot and killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis. (Obtained by Fox News)
Local officials, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, criticized the federal account of the incident and rejected the claim that the officer acted in self-defense. Minnesota has since sued the Trump administration, claiming the immigration enforcement surge in the state is “unlawful” and “unprecedented.”
“What we are seeing right now is not normal immigration enforcement,” Frey said. “The scale is wildly disproportionate, and it has nothing to do with keeping people safe.”
The Trump administration pushed back sharply against the lawsuit, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accusing Minnesota leaders of undermining public safety and obstructing federal law enforcement.
MINNESOTA SUES TRUMP ADMIN OVER SWEEPING IMMIGRATION RAIDS IN TWIN CITIES
Federal officials, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, maintained that the agent fired in self-defense.
Renee Good’s crashed car after the shooting. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Noem critisized Democrats on Sunday amid an Illinois lawmaker’s push to impeach her following the deadly shooting.
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“These law enforcement officers are trained to be in situations that are dangerous, and they rely on that training each and every day to make the right decisions,” Noem said during “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Politics
Democrat-turned-Republican Gloria Romero announces run for lieutenant governor
Gloria Romero, a former Democrat and state Senate Majority Leader, announced Monday she is running for lieutenant governor as part of a ticket with GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator.
“At the end of the day, it’s really about one-party rule in Sacramento. I’ve seen it. I left it,” Romero said in an interview. “We’ve got to make a change, otherwise we will never turn around on accountability or affordability and fight for working families like the Democrats once said the party stood for. Those days are gone. It’s a new day, and I’m proud to work alongside Steve in this exciting race to make California Golden again.”
Hilton, who has a long-standing political relationship with Romero, said her expertise in the state Capitol is among the reasons he selected her. Romero served in the state Senate and Assembly for about 12 years, including three as the state Senate’s first female majority leader.
“She’s been incredibly helpful already, helping me understand how Sacramento works and doesn’t work,” Hilton said. “When I’m the governor I will have to work with the legislature. And one of the most important things that I see as a real benefit from having Gloria there with me is that she’s not just been in the legislature, she’s led one of the chambers. She really understands how it works and still has relationships.”
Other candidates running for lieutenant governor include Treasurer Fiona Ma, former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and Josh Fryday, a member of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cabinet, all Democrats, and state Sen. Brian Jones (R-Santee).
Romero was a lifelong Democrat, including co-chairing President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign in California. But she began to break with her party over education reform, notably her support for school choice.
“Education is the key to the American dream, and yet my party was so beholden to the teachers union, the alphabet soup of power influencers in Sacramento,” she said.
Invoking the words of the late President Reagan, Romero said she didn’t leave the Democratic party, the party left her. She became a registered Republican in September 2024 after what she calls a “political coup” to oust President Biden as the Democratic nominee. She then endorsed President Trump and spoke at a rally supporting him near Coachella.
She said the lieutenant governor’s role is typically a sleepy perch for politicians as they bide their time to run for higher office.
“It should not be that way,” Romero said, adding that the lieutenant governor’s role on the boards that oversee the UCs, Cal States and community college is a particularly good fit for her wheelhouse. “Education and turning around education, it’s in my blood, it’s in my dreams. It’s my passion.”
Unlike presidential elections, statewide contests do not feature running mates; each candidate must be elected on their own merits.
Hilton said Romero was the first member of his “golden ticket for California” and that he planned to roll out other statewide candidates who will join their effort.
“I know it hasn’t been done before. It’s not how things are normally done,” he said. “But right from the beginning, when I was thinking about my race for governor, one of the things that I really wanted to do was to put together a strong team, because turning around California is going to take a strong team.”
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