Supreme Court restricts power of judges to block Trump's orders nationwide

US president calls it monumental victory for constitution’

- ALEX WOODWARD IN NEW YORK

The US Supreme Court handed president Donald Trump a major victory yesterday by curbing the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding his policies, but it left unresolved the issue of whether he can limit birthright citizenship.

The president welcomed the ruling and said his administration can now seek to proceed with numerous policies such as his executive order aiming to restrict birthright citizenship, which he said "have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis". Mr Trump told reporters at the White House: "We have so many of them. I have a whole list."

He said it was a "monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law". He said: "It was a grave threat to democracy, frankly, and instead of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation."

The court's 6-3 ruling, authored by conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not let Mr Trump's birthright citizenship order go into effect immediately, directing lower courts that blocked it to reconsider the scope of their orders.

The ruling also did not address its legality. The justices granted a request by the Trump administration to narrow the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state that halted enforcement of his directive while litigation challenging the policy plays out.

A series of federal court rulings across the country earlier this year struck down the president's attempt to block citizenship from newborn Americans who are born to certain immigrant parents. The government argued those decisions should only impact the individual states - and the unborn children of pregnant mothers in them - who sued him and won.