Amy Coney Barrett Rebukes Ketanji Brown Jackson's 'Extreme' Opinion

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett sharply criticized Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent in Trump v. CASA, a case centered on President Donald Trump’s executive order concerning birthright citizenship.

On Friday, the Court issued its decision in what is widely seen as one of the term’s most consequential cases. In a 6–3 ruling, the Court did not address the constitutionality of birthright citizenship itself—the principle that grants U.S. citizenship to children born on American soil regardless of their parents’ status. Instead, the decision handed the Trump administration a procedural win by concluding that federal judges lack the power to impose nationwide injunctions that extend beyond the plaintiffs in individual cases.

This marks a victory for Trump, whose executive orders have frequently been blocked by such sweeping injunctions while lawsuits proceed. Nationwide injunctions have become a common judicial check on executive actions under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Barrett, writing the majority opinion, faulted Jackson’s reasoning as unclear.

“She might be arguing that universal injunctions are appropriate—even required—whenever the defendant is part of the Executive Branch,” Barrett wrote. “If so, her position goes far beyond the mainstream defense of universal injunctions.”

Barrett called the dissent “more extreme still,” claiming Jackson’s argument “is at odds with more than two centuries of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself.”

“We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” Barrett added.

She acknowledged that the Executive must follow the law but stressed that courts do not have limitless authority to enforce that obligation. “In fact,” she wrote, “sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so.”

In her dissent, Jackson warned that restricting nationwide injunctions amounted to giving the Executive Branch a license to violate the law.

“When the Government says ‘do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,’ what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution—please allow this,” she wrote.

Jackson cautioned that the ruling could create a “zone of lawlessness” where the Executive could ignore the law at will.

“I have no doubt that, if judges must allow the Executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, as the Court concludes today, executive lawlessness will flourish,” Jackson wrote. “From there, it is not difficult to predict how this ends: eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the outcome in a post on X, formerly Twitter:

“Today, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to STOP the endless barrage of nationwide injunctions against President Trump. This would not have been possible without tireless work from our excellent lawyers at the Justice Department and Solicitor General John Sauer. This Department of Justice will continue to zealously defend the President’s policies and his authority to implement them.”

Fox News host Laura Ingraham also weighed in:

“Justice Barrett’s brutal takedown of the dissent authored by Justice Jackson is something one wouldn’t have predicted from oral arguments.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, criticized the decision:

“Has the Supreme Court decided to change the culture and character of America? Congress must thoroughly examine this decision to find ways to legislate and protect the Constitutional right to citizenship for all those born in America. Hopefully one day soon the Court will have the courage to correctly rule that if you’re born here, you’re an American—instead of hiding behind the Administration’s game on nationwide injunctions.”

According to the ruling, Trump’s executive order will not take effect until 30 days after the opinion’s release.