U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Limits on Trump’s Policies — What Does It Mean for Judicial Power?

After a series of rulings by courts in several states that struck down presidential orders issued by Donald Trump, he scored a major legal victory.

On June 27, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a significant win for Trump in his ongoing battle with the federal judiciary by limiting the courts’ power to block the president’s policies pending a review of their legality.

With the help of three conservative justices he appointed to the Supreme Court, Trump secured a 6-3 majority decision that restricts state judges’ authority to suspend executive decisions on the grounds of violating laws or the Constitution.

What Did the Court Say?

Under this ruling, Trump will be able to reinstate several presidential decisions that had been blocked in the courts, including ending birthright citizenship.

This also includes suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary federal funding, and stopping taxpayer money from being used for gender transition surgeries.

Additionally, there are expectations that decisions may be made against civil liberties and students who oppose him at universities, potentially leading to renewed expulsions and bans on Arab and Muslim students from entering campuses.

On June 27, the court, by a 6-3 majority of its conservative members (Trump supporters), ruled to limit state judges’ power to block the president’s policies nationwide. The three liberal justices dissented.

However, the court did not decide whether Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship is constitutional.

Instead, it focused on whether a single judge has the authority to issue federal injunctions, according to ABC News on June 27, 2025.

This means the Supreme Court partially granted the Trump administration’s request to suspend some preliminary court orders—but only in cases where multiple judges have issued many injunctions across several plaintiffs with the right to sue.

Individual lawsuits against Trump will be dismissed, while class-action suits may still be allowed in the future, according to American newspapers.

Since taking office, state judges have issued over 40 orders blocking Trump’s decisions, which the Supreme Court deemed improper as it interferes with the executive branch and hampers its work.

American newspapers report that the court’s majority ruled federal judges lack the authority to issue nationwide injunctions.

However, the ruling remains unclear on whether Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship can soon be enforced in parts of the U.S.

Trump’s order denies citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.

But the court left the door open for the ban on birthright citizenship changes to continue at the national level.

The Associated Press hinted that the court’s decision could lead to a confusing patchwork of rules differing across the 22 states that filed lawsuits against Trump’s order and the rest of the country.

The ruling came after the Republican administration asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of so-called “nationwide” injunctions issued by three federal judges.

What Do the Decisions Mean?

With this series of rulings in his favor, the Supreme Court has handed President Trump a major victory from the highest judicial authority in the United States. It has made it easier for him to implement controversial parts of his agenda while setting clearer limits on presidential power.

The Supreme Court’s decision also rebalances power between the federal judiciary and the presidency, restricting the ability of lower court judges to block Trump’s orders, according to legal experts.

The court’s decision has “systematically weakened judicial oversight and strengthened executive discretion,” Paul Rosenzweig, an attorney who served in Republican President George W. Bush's administration, told Reuters.

“The decision did not, however, permit immediate implementation of Trump's directive, instead instructing lower courts to reconsider the scope of the injunctions,” the agency said.

Legal analysts say the Supreme Court did not fully rule in Trump’s favor, especially on the issue of indefinitely suspending deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador without allowing for appeals.

However, they believe Trump’s wins in the court’s recent ruling outweigh his losses by a wide margin, according to the Associated Press.

CNN reported on June 27 that the ruling related to Trump’s executive order effectively ending birthright citizenship does not resolve whether the president can actually enforce the order.

The network said the Supreme Court’s decision means Americans seeking to challenge Trump’s future policies may face more hurdles before succeeding.

While the ruling is “an important win for Trump,” it could have “far-reaching consequences” for his second term, as it limits courts’ power to overturn future policies, CNN noted.

The New York Times, on June 28, described the gravity of the Supreme Court’s ruling as signaling the fading of more checks on Trump’s power, effectively turning him into a dictator.

“The diminishing of judicial authority as a potential counterweight to exercises of presidential power carries implications far beyond the issue of citizenship.”

The Times said the court restricted judges’ hands at a time when Congress is also under Trump’s sway, and as internal constraints imposed by the executive branch increase—meaning the limits on presidential power are eroding.

The Supreme Court’s ruling preventing judges from quickly blocking government actions—even if unlawful—is another step in weakening checks on executive power as Trump seeks greater control.

The Guardian, on June 27, put it plainly: “Trump will now have the presumptive power to persecute you, and nullify your rights in defiance of the constitution, at his discretion.”

The New York Times also pointed out that the ruling could enable enforcement of Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, despite all courts that have reviewed it declaring it unconstitutional.

This means some children born to undocumented immigrants or foreign visitors without green cards could be denied documents proving their citizenship, like Social Security numbers.

Collusion with Trump

The Supreme Court’s rulings, featuring three justices appointed by Trump during his first term, have sparked sharp criticism from liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

They accused the conservative majority of yielding to the president and putting the American system of government at “grave risk.”

With six conservative justices out of nine on the Supreme Court—three appointed by Trump—many Americans see the court as colluding with the president, as the six conservatives have handed down several rulings in his favor.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, he has enjoyed a string of victories in the Supreme Court thanks to his loyal judges.

In the five months since his inauguration, the court has largely sided with presidential actions.

This reached a peak with the decision limiting federal judges’ authority to block Trump’s orders through injunctions issued by lower courts across the country.

In 2024, the court’s conservative majority ruled that Trump—and other presidents—enjoyed, at least virtually, immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office.

This ruling allowed Trump to avoid prosecution over allegations of election interference, and he won the most recent presidential election.

The court’s latest ruling, by the same majority, opens the door for his administration to resume deportations of migrants to third countries without granting them the chance to appeal.

It also ends the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants who remain in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons.

Since taking office again, Trump has won nearly 10 emergency cases in the Supreme Court, including his decision to deport some migrants to countries other than their homelands.

Other rulings include allowing Trump to remove board members from independent agencies, barring homosexual Americans from military service, and ending legal protections for immigrants, even those with legal status.

The three liberal justices opposed to Trump sharply criticized their conservative colleagues for colluding with the president in a way that threatens the future of the American judiciary.

They sounded the alarm over the ruling’s permission for Trump and future presidents to impose unlawful policies.

Liberal spokesperson Sonia Sotomayor said the majority shamefully played along with the administration’s tactics in this case.

She described the ruling as an attempt to impose a clearly unconstitutional policy—not by asking judges to approve it, but by instead limiting their federal authority nationwide.

She warned that the decision is an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution, saying: “The executive branch can now enforce policies that flout settled law and violate countless individuals’ constitutional rights, and the federal courts will be hamstrung to stop its actions fully.”

In a rare move, Sotomayor read parts of her dissent aloud from the bench.

She referenced a previous ruling by the court’s Trump-appointed conservative majority in 2024 that granted broad immunity to the executive branch.

Sotomayor emphasized the justices’ mistakes, saying that another error has occurred concerning executive immunity.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also accused the court’s conservatives of creating an existential threat to the rule of law by allowing Trump to violate the Constitution.

“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, and from there, it is not difficult to predict how this all ends,” she wrote. 

“Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional republic will be no more.”