By Shawn Fleetwood | The Federalist
On Thursday, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas injected a healthy dose of reality into Supreme Court oral arguments over the issue of nationwide injunctions on President Trump’s birthright citizenship order.
The moment came during an exchange between Thomas and U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer on the history of nationwide injunctions. Such orders seek to prohibit the federal government from implementing a certain law or policy against all applicable persons, regardless of whether those individuals are parties to the case before the court.
In Thursday’s hearing, Thomas asked Sauer — who represented the Trump administration — about the history of nationwide injunctions and when courts first started issuing such orders. The solicitor general answered by citing Thomas’ concurring opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, a 2018 case that resulted in SCOTUS reversing “a lower court’s decision to uphold a nationwide injunction on Trump’s travel ban,” according to The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson.