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Dismantling The Disastrous ‘Birthright Citizenship’ Decision

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Justice Clarence Thomas torched the Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-365_4hdj.pdf">ruling</a> on Tuesday that birthright citizenship should apply to the children of illegal immigrants and people living temporarily in the United States. 
Thomas said that he did not believe the decision would hold up to the test of time and argued that it devalued American citizenship. The case revolved around an executive order issued by President Donald Trump which argued that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on the children of illegal immigrants or those temporarily in the United States. 
“The court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Thomas wrote in a dissent. “In doing so, the court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”
Thomas argued that the 14th Amendment was designed to apply to freed slaves and their children, who owed no allegiances to foreign countries. 
“The same could not be said for the children of foreign temporary visitors. Foreign temporary visitors were attached to their home country, lacked similar bonds to this country, and would not be called upon in time of war. Americans, consistent with their settler ethos, believed that citizens were the people who called a place home,” he said. 
“I am not sure that today’s opinion will stand the test of time. The Citizenship Clause ‘added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship,’” Thomas added. “Today’s opinion devalues that citizenship.”
In a separate dissent, Justice Samuel Alito said he thought the court made a “serious mistake.” 
“As interpreted by the court today, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of ‘birth tourists,’ women who come here solely for the purpose of giving birth to a child and then promptly return home,” Alito wrote. “Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way. Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.”
Alito added that the court’s ruling would keep a key incentive for illegal immigration in place. 
“The court’s interpretation preserves a powerful incentive to enter or remain in this country illegally. Immigrants naturally prefer affluent countries where economic opportunities are available,” he said. “Other than Canada, the United States will be the only affluent nation where birth alone is enough to establish citizenship.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch concurred with Thomas and added his own dissenting opinion.

Warsh To Be Sworn In As Fed Chief During White House Ceremony

Clarence Thomas Torches SCOTUS Decision On Birthright Citizenship

Neil Gorsuch

The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major immigration victory on Tuesday, ruling that federal border officials can treat green card holders facing certain criminal allegations as applicants for admission when they return from foreign travel, even before securing a conviction.
In a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, the Court sided with the administration in a case involving a Chinese national and lawful permanent resident who left the United States while facing criminal charges and later attempted to reenter the country.
Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas rejected a lower court ruling that would have required border officials to possess &#8220;clear and convincing evidence&#8221; that a green card holder committed a qualifying crime before treating that individual as an applicant for admission.
&#8220;Nothing in the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act] required the border officer to have clear and convincing evidence&#8221; before making that determination, Thomas <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-429_h3ci.pdf">wrote</a>.
The case centered on Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese citizen who became a lawful permanent resident in 2007. In 2012, New Jersey charged Lau with trademark counterfeiting. While awaiting trial, Lau traveled to China and later attempted to return to the United States through John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Because of the pending criminal charge, federal officials declined to automatically treat Lau as a returning permanent resident and instead classified him as an applicant seeking admission into the country. Lau was allowed to physically enter the United States on parole while his criminal case proceeded. After Lau later pleaded guilty, the government moved to remove him from the country.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Lau, arguing that immigration officials lacked sufficient evidence at the time he arrived at the airport to treat him as an applicant for admission rather than as an already-admitted permanent resident. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling.
Thomas noted that Congress never imposed a requirement that border officers possess &#8220;clear and convincing evidence&#8221; before making quick decisions at ports of entry.
&#8220;We decline to read into the INA an additional clear-and-convincing-evidence burden on border officers entrusted with making quick judgments on the spot when that burden is nowhere in the statute,&#8221; Thomas wrote.
The ruling represents another legal victory for President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration as it seeks to strengthen immigration enforcement and expand the authority of federal officials to remove non-citizens who commit crimes.
The Court emphasized that green card holders are not automatically immune from scrutiny when returning from overseas travel, particularly when they have allegedly committed crimes that can trigger removal proceedings under federal immigration law.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent and was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Jackson argued that lawful permanent residents enjoy special protections under federal law and warned that the majority&#8217;s ruling gives the government excessive authority to downgrade the status of green card holders before proving that an exception to those protections applies.
&#8220;I worry that the Court has now handed the Government a massive blank check,&#8221; Jackson wrote.
The majority rejected that argument, concluding that the Immigration and Nationality Act allows immigration authorities to treat a returning permanent resident as an applicant for admission if the individual has committed certain offenses, even if the conviction occurs later.
In its ruling, the Court did not decide whether Lau&#8217;s trademark-counterfeiting conviction qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude under immigration law, leaving that question unresolved for lower courts to decide.

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Trump Notches Another Big Supreme Court Win — This Time On Green Cards

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed the brakes on a high-stakes, cross-country legal war, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-florida-lawsuit-drivers-licenses-undocumented-immigrants-rcna265323">throwing out</a> a lawsuit by Florida that aimed to punish blue states for putting allegedly unqualified illegal immigrants behind the wheel of deadly 80,000-pound rigs.
Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier took the fight straight to the nation’s highest court, trying to sue California and Washington state after a horrific August 2025 crash on the Florida Turnpike left three people dead.
The driver in that fatal wreck, Harjinder Singh, was an illegal Indian immigrant who had sneaked across the Mexican border. According to federal tests administered after the disaster, Singh could barely speak English and recognized just one out of four basic highway signs before he made a catastrophic, illegal U-turn into a minivan.
Despite the tragedy, the high court’s majority refused to even look at the case, invoking a rarely used power to reject the Sunshine State’s complaint without explanation.
But conservative titan Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, ripped his colleagues in a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/162orig_8n6a.pdf">blistering dissent</a>, arguing that the court cannot simply duck its constitutional duties while rogue states spark a national border crisis on wheels.
“An illegal alien who cannot read English road signs cannot drive an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer,” Thomas wrote in his fiery opinion, taking direct aim at the liberal West Coast states.
Florida’s lawsuit claimed California and Washington showed &#8220;open defiance&#8221; of federal laws by greenlighting commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) for migrants without legal status, leaving them untrained and unable to read American road signs. Thomas pointed out that “although Singh failed his test at least ten times in Washington and at least one time in California, both Washington and California provided Singh with CDLs.”
The high court’s brush-off means Florida is completely locked out of justice, Thomas warned, fuming that the Supreme Court is the only venue allowed to arbitrate battles between states.
“This Court declines to even hear Florida’s claims, even though it has nowhere else to bring them,” Thomas wrote. “I doubt this Court has discretion to refuse to hear cases within its exclusive original jurisdiction.”
Thomas argued that the crisis of blue states unleashing dangerous drivers across state lines is so severe it practically amounts to an act of war.
“A dispute over one nation sending dangerous people into another &#8216;would be the source of considerable international tension,&#8217;” Thomas wrote. “If Florida were an independent nation, it &#8216;might resolve [this] dispute by diplomacy, by submitting it to international arbitration, or by self-help measures.&#8217; By entering the Union, States agree to instead have such disputes resolved by this Court.”
Officials claimed the lawsuit was nothing more than a conservative &#8220;political stunt&#8221; rolled out on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Washington state lawyers warned that opening the door to Florida’s suit would lead to an endless flood of interstate bickering over everything from gun laws to vaccines.
The ruling comes as the Trump administration turns up the heat on &#8220;unqualified foreign drivers,&#8221; with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy auditing foreign workers and threatening to yank federal funds from states that flout English-language standards.
But for Thomas, the majority&#8217;s refusal to act represents a total failure of the justice system based on &#8220;policy judgments that are in conflict with the policy choices that Congress made.&#8221;
“We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given,” Thomas wrote, quoting historic precedent. “Because I would allow Florida to file its complaint, I respectfully dissent.”

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Supreme Court Rejects Lawsuit Against Blue States Over Illegal Immigrant Truck Drivers

Supreme Court Rejects Florida’s Lawsuit Against Blue States Over Illegal Immigrant Truck Drivers

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The easiest way to misunderstand Justice Clarence Thomas’s recent <a href="https://manhattaninstituteny-my.sharepoint.com/personal/pbeston_manhattan_institute/Documents/Documents/CJ/as%20part%20of%20the%20celebration%20of%20the%20250th%20anniversary%20of%20the%20Declaration%20of%20Independence">speech</a> at the University of Texas is as a conventional swipe at contemporary progressives. His target was instead deeper and older: the capital-P Progressive challenge to the American Founding itself.
Appearing in Austin as part of a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas framed the issue as one of first principles. “The Constitution is the means of government,” he said, and “it is the Declaration that announces the ends of government.”
Indeed, the American system is bigger than mere elections or policy outcomes. It’s defined by a moral claim about human equality and natural rights, and by a constitutional structure designed to secure them.
<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/clarence-thomas-2676762870">Thomas’s critics</a> seem eager to collapse his argument into today’s partisan disputes. They miss the broader view of his speech, with its focus on the long intellectual revolt against the Declaration’s premises and the Constitution’s architecture. As Thomas put it, “At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream.” Its leading apostle was Woodrow Wilson, and the movement was progressivism.
Since then, Thomas said, progressivism has “coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration.” Because it’s opposed to those principles, “it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.”
The original Progressives really did reject the Founding’s understanding of liberty, rights, and constitutional structure. Wilson proposed more than modernizing technical improvements around the edges. He argued for a different theory of government, based on his study of German bureaucracy.
That view dates back to his 1887 journal article “<a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-study-of-administration-2">The Study of Administration</a>,” where he insisted that “administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics,” and that “Administrative questions are not political questions.” He praised expert administration as distinct from ordinary constitutional politics and suggested that Montesquieu did not “say the last word” on the distribution of authority — meaning there was more to governance than checks and balances.
Thomas summarized the point bluntly. “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government,” he said. “It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from the government.”
That gets to the heart of the matter: a dispute over the nature of rights, not merely whether the government should act here or there. If rights are granted only by positive law, then liberty becomes contingent and revocable — and ultimately political.
And structure is where that dispute cashes out. The Progressives regarded separation of powers, federalism, and bicameralism as mere impediments to enlightened administration. The New Deal accelerated that tendency, consolidating policymaking and enforcement inside sprawling agencies that would’ve struck the Framers as a dangerous concentration of power.
Thomas was thus right to make an argument about regime-level principles. A country that forgets the Declaration’s account of man and government will not preserve the Constitution’s structure for long. Why bother, after all, with rival institutions, limited jurisdictions, and procedural friction if rights come from benevolent experts rather than from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”?
That’s why the speech also matters, given the increasingly fevered speculation over possible Supreme Court retirements. Justice Thomas turns 78 in June, while Justice Samuel Alito turned 76 earlier this month. Both men are at the top of their game, enjoying more influence than they’ve ever had — as the most senior associate justices, with Thomas set to become the longest-serving justice in history if he stays through May 2028. Neither has indicated a desire to leave and, while they’re aware of the crass political calculus, Republicans <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls/senate">are still narrowly favored</a> to keep the Senate in this fall’s midterms.
But the actuarial tables underscore what’s at stake. A hypothetical replacement needs to be not just smart, credentialed, and temperamentally suited for the high court. He or she needs to understand our constitutional order: that government exists to secure pre-political rights, and that constitutional structure is itself a guarantor of liberty. The late Justice Antonin Scalia <a href="https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/us-supreme-court-justices-discuss-first-amendment">captured</a> the point memorably: “Every tinhorn dictator in the world today has a bill of rights. It isn’t the Bill of Rights that produces freedom. It’s the structure of government that prevents anybody from seizing all the power.”
Justice Thomas’s Austin speech was a reminder of that forgotten truth. The American Founding was a claim about human nature, political power, and the institutions needed to keep freedom alive. Any successor worthy of his seat should understand that, too.
***
This was originally published with permission in Manhattan Institute&#8217;s City Journal, found <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/justice-clarence-thomas-speech-progressives">here</a>.
Ilya Shapiro is director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor of City Journal, senior counsel to Burke Law Group, PLLC, and author, most recently, of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lawless-Miseducation-Americas-Ilya-Shapiro/dp/0063336588/">Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites</a>. He also writes the <a href="https://ilyashapiro.substack.com/">Shapiro’s Gavel</a> newsletter.

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Clarence Thomas Understands Why The Constitution And A Progressive Worldview Are Incompatible

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Wednesday decried &#8220;progressivism,&#8221; saying the political ideology threatens the foundational principles and values of the United States.
During a lecture at the University of Texas School of Law, Thomas participated in an event <a href="https://www.fox7austin.com/news/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-speaks-ut-austin">marking the 250th anniversary</a> of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence.
He warned that a political ideology of &#8220;cynicism, rejection, hostility, and animus&#8221; is consuming Americans and taking over the country&#8217;s way of life.
&#8220;Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence, our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government,&#8221; Thomas said. &#8220;It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
🚨 JUST IN: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is being praised nationwide for dropping this TRUTH on leftism and &#8220;progressivism&#8221;
&#8220;Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights… <a href="https://t.co/pVRS8AuwwL">pic.twitter.com/pVRS8AuwwL</a>
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2044821167328878610?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
Thomas, one of the most influential conservatives on the Supreme Court, argued progressive ideals are on a collision course with the nation’s founding values.
&#8220;Since Woodrow Wilson&#8217;s presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government,&#8221; Thomas said. &#8220;It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Justice Thomas: &#8220;Since Woodrow Wilson&#8217;s presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/7Z08ZnNR0H">pic.twitter.com/7Z08ZnNR0H</a>
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) <a href="https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/2044793679009689802?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Thomas slammed elitism in Washington and accused policymakers of being &#8220;so swept up in the euphoria of acclamation and acceptance that they put aside their convictions.&#8221;
&#8220;They fall prey to the enchanting siren songs of flattery and become so bewitched by praise that they will desperately seek to conform accordingly,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;They water down their message, negotiate against themselves, vote against their principles, and hide in the tall grass,&#8221; Thomas asserted. &#8220;They recast themselves as institutionalists, pragmatists, or thoughtful moderates, all as a way of justifying their failures to themselves, their consciences and their country.&#8221;
The broadside against progressivism comes amid rising tensions at the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a rare public apology for personal criticism directed at Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The controversy began in Kansas, where she criticized Kavanaugh for his <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a169_5h25.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concurring opinion</a> in an immigration case involving ICE raids.
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“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,” Sotomayor said, according to a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-08/sotomayor-faults-kavanaugh-over-immigration-stops-concurrence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomberg report</a>. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”
“At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate,” Sotomayor said in a statement. “I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
NEW: Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor publicly apologizes for comments suggesting Justice Brett Kavanaugh was privileged and out of touch for his concurrence in an immigration case greenlighting warrantless ICE stops in LA. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SCOTUS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SCOTUS</a> <a href="https://t.co/6kLLuHol5d">pic.twitter.com/6kLLuHol5d</a>
— Katie Buehler (@bykatiebuehler) <a href="https://twitter.com/bykatiebuehler/status/2044528919785750761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2026</a></blockquote>
During a speech on Monday at Yale Law School, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stepped up her criticism of the court&#8217;s conservative majority, calling their handling of the emergency docket &#8220;corrosive,&#8221; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/justice-jackson-says-us-supreme-courts-use-emergency-docket-is-corrosive-2026-04-15/">according to Reuters</a>.
In Texas, Justice Thomas urged Americans frustrated with the country&#8217;s direction to get off the sidelines.
&#8220;I think if we don’t stand up and take ownership of our country, and take responsibility for it, we are slowly letting others control how we think and what we think,&#8221; Thomas said. &#8220;It&#8217;s our country.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Justice Clarence Thomas on rebuilding public trust in government: &#8220;I think if we don&#8217;t stand up and take ownership of our country, and take responsibility for it, we are slowly letting others control how we think and what we think.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/4bho06ftMX">pic.twitter.com/4bho06ftMX</a>
— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/2044604183077061074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2026</a></blockquote>

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Clarence Thomas Issues Stark Warning About America’s Survival Under The Left

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President Donald Trump said Senator Ted Cruz could be Supreme Court nominee in the near future, praising the Texas Republican during a speech in Corpus Christi on Friday evening.
Trump, who was once a fierce critic of Cruz, called the senator &#8220;an amazing guy&#8221; who is &#8220;so good and so talented.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m thinking about putting him in the Supreme Court,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;I&#8217;m thinking because it&#8217;s very hard, getting these nominations through is tough.&#8221;
The president added that Cruz would receive &#8220;100%&#8221; of the Democratic and Republican vote, arguing that Cruz&#8217;s foes would &#8220;want to get him out of [the Senate]. He is such a pain in the ass.&#8221;
Trump also floated the idea of a Cruz Supreme Court appointment during a speech last month, calling the senator a &#8220;brilliant legal mind.&#8221; Cruz, however, shot the proposal down in January.
&#8220;My answer&#8217;s not just no, it&#8217;s hell no,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.fox26houston.com/news/supreme-court-texas-ted-cruz-donald-trump">said</a>. &#8220;It is interesting in the first Trump term, the president talked to me about all three Supreme Court vacancies, and we had very serious conversations and I told him no all three times.&#8221;
Cruz added that he wants to be &#8220;right in the middle&#8221; of political battles, something the Republican said a &#8220;principled federal judge&#8221; would stay out of.
After completing law school, Cruz clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the Supreme Court from 1996 to 1997. Trump first discussed the idea of nominating Cruz to the Supreme Court with the senator privately after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, according to Cruz.
&#8220;I wrestled with it because I knew Justice Scalia and revered him,&#8221; Cruz added. &#8220;And to have the opportunity to succeed him, I mean, talk about taking your breath away.&#8221;
While none of the Supreme Court justices have announced plans to retire anytime soon, there has been talk of either Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas, the two oldest and most conservative justices, retiring within the next couple of years to give Trump a chance to replace either of them with another conservative. Thomas is 77-years-old and Alito is 75.
Alito is set to release a book in early October, which has sparked rumors that the conservative justice could be hanging up his robe before the beginning of the Supreme Court&#8217;s next term, which also begins in October. Alito has served on the court for 20 years, while Thomas is the longest-tenured justice, nearing his 35th year on the high court.
When asked about Thomas or Alito potentially retiring in the near future, Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/09/donald-trump-full-interview-transcript-00681693?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nname=playbook&amp;nrid=fe8db97b-d67e-4e92-8f3a-1577ce038e35">told</a> POLITICO in December that he wants both of them to stay on the court.
&#8220;Both of those men are fantastic,&#8221; he said.
After Republicans successfully prevented former President Barack Obama from tapping Merrick Garland as Scalia&#8217;s replacement — thanks to the efforts of then-Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch in 2017. Trump went on to nominate two more justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, during his first term. Conservatives now have a 6-3 majority, but Trump has recently been frustrated with conservative justices, including Gorsuch, Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts.

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Donald Trump

Executive

Politics

Ted Cruz

Supreme Court justices ranging from conservative Clarence Thomas to liberal Elena Kagan pressed the state of New Jersey on Tuesday about its expansive investigation targeting a Christian pro-life crisis pregnancy center. 
The justices heard arguments about whether a Christian pregnancy center can challenge a wide-ranging subpoena from the New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin that demanded donor information. The case hinges on whether the subpoena had the impact of chilling supporters of  First Choice Women’s Resource Centers and is entitled to relief in federal court. 
During oral arguments on Tuesday, many of the justices appeared skeptical of the arguments made by Sundeep Iyer, a lawyer for the state of New Jersey. 
In one exchange, Justice Thomas pushed Iyer on why the subpoena was issued to First Choice. 
“Did you have complaints that formed the basis of your concern about the fundraising activities here?” Thomas asked.
Iyer responded by saying that they had complaints about crisis pregnancy centers in general, but not specifically First Choice. Thomas then suggested that New Jersey had “no factual basis” for believing that the pregnancy center was deceiving donors and that the subpoena was a “burdensome way to find out whether someone has a confusing website.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-jerseys-war-on-crisis-pregnancy-centers-heads-to-the-supreme-court?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=5&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=New+Jersey’s+War+On+Crisis+Pregnancy+Centers+Heads+To+The+Supreme+Court">Related: New Jersey’s War On Crisis Pregnancy Centers Heads To The Supreme Court</a>
Another key question in the case is whether the subpoena could be considered “chilling” because it had not yet been approved by a court. Justice Kagan, one of the court’s liberals, pushed Iyer on that question. 
“I think here, too, you would make the same argument is that an ordinary person, one of the funders for this organization or for any similar organization, presented with this subpoena, and then told, ‘But don&#8217;t worry, it has to be stamped by a court is not going to take that as very reassuring,’” Kagan said. “Why isn’t that right?”
Other justices, including Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and John Roberts, were also critical of New Jersey’s interpretation of the subpoena it had issued. 
First Choice has centers in five of New Jersey’s largest cities, including New Brunswick, Newark, Morristown, Montclair, and Jersey City. Services include free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and options counseling. They also offer a parenting program that provides essential needs such as baby clothes and diapers. 
“This court has long safeguarded the right of association by protecting the membership and donor list of nonprofit organizations like First Choice,” said Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Erin Hawley. “Yet the attorney general of New Jersey issued a sweeping subpoena, commanding on pain of contempt that First Choice produce donor names, addresses, and phone numbers, so his office could contact and question them. That violates the right of association.”
Platkin first subpoenaed First Choice in November 2023, asking for ten years of documents related to its promotion of the abortion pill reversal, information they provided to clients and donors, personnel records, and copies of every advertisement the centers had run. 
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Pregnancy centers across the country that support vulnerable women in blue states like California, New York, and Illinois have all faced legal challenges for promoting the abortion pill reversal protocol.

2025-Netroots-Nation

Supreme Court Justices Clash With New Jersey In Pregnancy Center Battle

Supreme Court Justices Push New Jersey Over Targeting Of Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Abortion

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pregnancy centers

Pro-Life Movement

Transgender Rights Advocates Rally Against The Supreme Court’s Ban On Gender-Affirming Youth Care

The Trans Agenda Was Just Dealt A Fatal Blow

Gender

Matt Walsh

Opinion

Sonia Sotomayor

Tennessee

Transgender

transgender surgery

WPATH

This week’s Supreme Court decision in United States v. Skrmetti revealed a stark contrast between rigorous constitutional analysis and sloppy judicial reasoning.
While the six-judge majority correctly applied Equal Protection doctrine to uphold Tennessee&#8217;s commonsense restrictions on experimental medical treatments for minors, Justice Sonia Sotomayor&#8217;s dissent — to which her fellow liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, signed on — is a masterclass in how not to interpret the Constitution.
Rather than actual Constitutional analysis, Sotomayor’s dissent relies on emotional manipulation and strained legal analogies.
The centerpiece of Justice Sotomayor&#8217;s dissent rests on a fundamental category error: borrowing reasoning from a case interpreting a civil rights statute and trying to apply it to a very different constitutional text.
Bostock v. Clayton County was the infamous 2020 case in which Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the Court’s liberals and Chief Justice John Roberts to conclude that civil rights law barring employment discrimination “because of sex” also barred discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status.
Gorsuch’s error in that case grew out of his cramped application of textualism and turned on the precise meaning of the words “because of sex.” As flawed as Bostock’s reasoning was, that reasoning doesn’t apply to Skrmetti, because the words being interpreted in Bostock are found nowhere in the Equal Protection Clause. Instead, it simply prohibits states from denying &#8220;equal protection of the laws.&#8221;
This distinction matters enormously. In a democratic republic like ours, the people make law or adopt constitutional amendments through their elected representatives, and a great deal of negotiation and debate go into the exact words chosen. A court can’t simply decide that the meanings of two phrases in very different legal contexts are close enough for government work. Just because the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause both deal with discrimination doesn’t mean their reasoning is fungible.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented in Bostock, pointed out this analytical flaw in his Skrmetti concurrence, noting that “[a]n abstract similarity between the purposes of the Constitution and a statute is not a license to import the statute’s interpretation into the Constitution, much less to ignore the Constitution’s text.”
It is telling that the dissent put so much weight on Bostock rather than analyzing the language of the Constitution itself, let alone the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment.
<blockquote>
<h2>Just because the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause both deal with discrimination doesn’t mean their reasoning is fungible.</h2>
</blockquote>
Perhaps more troubling than the dissent&#8217;s misuse of precedent is its shameless deployment of emotional manipulation where legal reasoning should prevail. Sotomayor devotes substantial space to the personal stories of the plaintiff families, describing children who felt &#8220;trapped in the wrong body&#8221; and parents who worried about their children&#8217;s &#8220;ability to survive.&#8221;
These stories may be heart-wrenching, but there are emotional stories on both sides in this case. Detransitioners speak of the deep regret and lifelong health challenges created by childhood treatments that permanently altered their bodies, sexual function, and fertility.
Constitutional law cannot be decided based on which side tells the most compelling sob stories. The Equal Protection Clause protects important rights, but those rights must be grounded in constitutional text, history, and precedent — not in judicial sympathy for particular litigants.
The dissent&#8217;s emotional appeals serve a strategic purpose: they distract from the weakness of the underlying legal arguments. When Justice Sotomayor cannot convincingly explain why Tennessee&#8217;s age-based and purpose-based medical regulations constitute sex discrimination, she pivots to describing tragic individual circumstances. This is advocacy, not constitutional interpretation.
We’ve seen this type of reasoning before. Instead of discussing the Second Amendment, we are treated to heartbreaking stories of shooting victims. When considering the constitutionality of Obamacare, one side discusses the meaning of the Commerce Clause while the other shows posters of children with cancer. The dissent&#8217;s methodology would transform constitutional law into a contest of competing narratives rather than a discipline grounded in legal principle.
<blockquote>
<h2>Constitutional law cannot be decided based on which side tells the most compelling sob stories.</h2>
</blockquote>
It’s not just judges who too often override their professional standards to advance political objectives. Most of the nation’s medical organizations have themselves become politically compromised and provide cover for results-oriented judges. Justice Sotomayor repeatedly cites the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and similar groups as if they were neutral and unassailable scientific enterprises rather than advocacy groups wholly captured by progressive ideology.
This appeal to authority crumbles under scrutiny. Justice Thomas&#8217;s concurrence exposes the utter corruption of these supposedly neutral medical authorities. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which provides the &#8220;scientific&#8221; foundation for these groups&#8217; positions, has admitted in internal communications that &#8220;evidence-based review reveals little or no evidence&#8221; supporting their recommendations. Yet they continue pushing these experimental treatments on children.
One WPATH contributor explicitly stated that medical guidelines should be tailored to &#8220;have serious effect in…law and policy settings.&#8221; Most damning, WPATH ultimately removed age limits for adolescent transgender surgeries after pressure from the Biden administration and specifically to avoid &#8220;devastating legislation.&#8221;
It’s telling that countries like England, Sweden, Finland, and Norway — hardly bastions of conservatism — have moved away from experimental transgender treatments on minors after honest scientific review. So much for the dissent’s alleged scientific consensus.
<blockquote>
<h2>Justice Sotomayor&#8217;s dissent in Skrmetti is a microcosm of the problems with results-oriented judging.</h2>
</blockquote>
When supposed medical authorities admit they&#8217;re pursuing political rather than scientific goals, citing their positions as neutral expertise becomes intellectually dishonest. The dissent never grapples with this evidence of institutional capture, instead treating politically motivated medical organizations as oracles of scientific truth.
Justice Sotomayor&#8217;s dissent in Skrmetti is a microcosm of the problems with results-oriented judging. Rather than honestly grapple with constitutional text and precedent, it deploys weak analogies, emotional manipulation, and appeals to compromised authority to reach a predetermined conclusion.
The good news is that this type of analysis, once commonplace in our constitutional law, is now relegated to a three-justice dissent.
Carrie Severino is the president of JCN and co-author of the bestselling book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Justice Sotomayor’s Sloppy Reasoning in Skrmetti: Weak Analogies And Emotional Appeals

Skrmetti

Vice President JD Vance trolled users of BlueSky on Wednesday, joining the social platform to take part in “common sense political discussion” of the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding state bans on gender mutilation surgeries.
Vance created an account on BlueSky, reputedly a platform for leftists and defectors of Elon Musk’s X, and posted a screenshot of a piece of Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence in United States v. Skrmetti shortly before the vice president was apparently suspended from the site. Vance&#8217;s account was then reactivated a short time later.
In the concurrence, Thomas raised objections to “deferring to the authority of the expert class.”
“First, so-called experts have no license to countermand the ‘wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices,’” Thomas wrote. “Second, contrary to the representations of the United States and the private plaintiffs, there is no medical consensus on how best to treat gender dysphoria in children.”
“Third, notwithstanding the alleged experts’ view that young children can provide informed consent to irreversible sex-transition treatments, whether such consent is possible is a question of medical ethics that States must decide for themselves,” he continued. “Fourth, there are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ideology to influence their medical guidance.”
Vance posted the snippet with an encouraging, if cheeky, message inviting “discussion and analysis” of Thomas’ argument.
“Hello Bluesky, I’ve been told this app has become the place to go to for common sense political discussion and analysis. So I&#8217;m thrilled to be here to engage with all of you,” Vance said before laying out “illuminating” points from Thomas’ concurrence.
“[Thomas] argues that many of our so-called ‘experts’ have used bad arguments and substandard science to push experimental therapies on our youth,” Vance said. “I might add that many of those scientists are receiving substantial resources from big pharma to push these medicines on kids. What do you think?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Just set up my page on <a href="https://twitter.com/bluesky?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@bluesky</a>, hope to see you guys there! <a href="https://t.co/5cgjyMF8su">pic.twitter.com/5cgjyMF8su</a>
&mdash; JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1935457852082016556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Progressives on BlueSky pounced on Vance&#8217;s post. Gun control activist Fred Guttenberg <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/fredguttenberg.bsky.social/post/3lrwaj53vk224">called</a> Vance an &#8220;anti-Democracy hack&#8221; and said of the vice president&#8217;s post that BlueSky &#8220;does not need to be infested with your deranged thoughts.&#8221;
Zach Kopplin, an activist and investigator with the Government Accountability Project, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/zackkopplin.bsky.social/post/3lrw7pd7doc2l">responded</a> to Vance&#8217;s post: &#8220;Time to cyber bully JD Vance off this app.&#8221;
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-upholds-tennessees-ban-on-transgender-drugs-for-children">upheld</a> a state ban on transgender drugs and surgeries in Tennessee. The court ruled that the ban does not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“In today’s historic Supreme Court win, the common sense of Tennessee voters prevailed over judicial activism,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fatal-blow-to-the-child-mutilation-industry-conservatives-cheer-scotus-decision-on-trans-ban">said</a> Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. “A bipartisan supermajority of Tennessee’s elected representatives carefully considered the evidence and voted to protect kids from irreversible decisions they cannot yet fully understand.”

JD Vance, Clarence Thomas

Lib Social App Suspends Vance’s Account After His Opening Salvo Triggers Trans Activists

Lib Social App Suspends Vance's Account After His Opening Salvo Triggers Trans Activists

JD Vance

The Supreme Court on Thursday <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-320_m648.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unanimously ruled</a> that disabled veterans were entitled to retroactive compensation.
The case, Soto v. United States, began as a class action lawsuit led by Simon Soto, who served in the Marines for six years until he was medically retired. Soto served for part of this time in Mortuary Affairs, where he was “assigned to ‘search for, recover, and process the remains’ of war casualties.’” He struggled to return to civil life and was later diagnosed with a 100% disability rating for post-traumatic stress disorder by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), signifying “[t]otal occupational and social impairment.”
Soto applied for combat-related special compensation (CRSC), which is intended to offset the portion of retirement pay veterans are required to waive in order to receive disability benefits from the VA. Originally available only to veterans with 20 or more years of service, Congress extended special compensation to all veterans in 2008.
Soto applied for CRSC in 2016, and was found eligible. The government gave him retroactive compensation for his waived retirement pay, but capped it at six years, citing the Barring Act, which “subjects most claims to a six-year limitations period.” But the Barring Act also said that if “another law” allows the government to adjudicate settlements with the government, the six-year ceiling is not applicable.
Soto filed a class action lawsuit with other veterans whose compensation was limited under the Barring Act. They argued that the combat-related special compensation falls under the Barring Act’s loophole for superseding laws. The government argued that the statute establishing combat-related special compensation lacked the “specific language” needed to establish this.
A district court ruled in favor of Soto, and a federal circuit ruled in favor of the government, sending the case to the Supreme Court.
Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the court, which emphasized that Congress isn’t limited by specific language arguments.
“As this Court has repeatedly explained, Congress &#8216;need not state its intent in any particular way,” and &#8216;[w]e have never required that Congress use magic words.&#8217;”
The Court ruled that there is sufficient basis for “another law” in the combat-related special compensation statute, ultimately deciding that Soto and his fellow veterans, whom they described as a “group of exceptionally deserving claimants”, can receive full disability compensation for their service.

Supreme Court Rules Unanimously In Favor Of Back Pay For Disabled Vets

Veterans

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