Statement
Statement from Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich on Supreme Court Ruling Trump v. CASA
For Immediate Release: Friday 27 June
The Supreme Court issued a troubling ruling today in Trump v. CASA—one that limits the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions, even in cases where constitutional rights may be at stake. While the Court did not rule directly on President Trump’s attempt to undermine birthright citizenship, it chipped away at the judicial tools used to protect those rights and weakened protections for immigrants, rather than upholding the values enshrined in our Constitution.
For over a century, the 14th Amendment has guaranteed that anyone born in the United States is a citizen—regardless of their parents’ status. That’s not a loophole. That’s a principle of equality and fairness at the core of who we are as a nation.
It is ironic that the majority of the Court calls themselves strict constructionists, and yet they choose to ignore the clear words of the Constitution when it offers an opportunity to take away people’s rights.
By limiting nationwide injunctions, the Court has opened the door to a chaotic and deeply unequal system, where the rights of children could now depend on which state or judicial district they happen to be born in. That’s not justice. That’s fragmentation. And as Justice Sotomayor rightly pointed out, this decision is part of a pattern we’ve seen from this Court—chipping away at settled law and sowing confusion in its place.
As we saw with the established Constitutional law of Roe v. Wade a few years ago, the majority of this Supreme Court is intent on reversing progress. Denying lower courts the ability to enforce this right uniformly, the Supreme Court goes against what this nation promises and leaves an environment of chaos, inequality and fear.
Undermining birthright citizenship isn’t just a legal argument—it’s an attack on immigrant families, on the Constitution, and on the promise of equal protection under the law. This isn’t what our country stands for. And here in Montgomery County, we’ll continue to fight for the rights of all residents, no matter where they were born or how they arrived here. We don’t ask about status when someone calls 911 or when children enroll in school. We are not going to let political rhetoric dictate how we treat people in our County.
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Release ID: 25-018