Supreme Court just walked into the Trump administration's 'trap': analysis

President Donald Trump's administration set a "trap" for the Supreme Court, and Shirin Ali wrote for Slate on Friday that the court walked right into it.

The Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. Casa, which was issued on Friday, sent shockwaves through the government. The court decided that nationwide injunctions, or court orders that prevent the government from enforcing a specific law or policy, are unconstitutional. While that ruling is stunning on its face, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor thinks the ruling will have massive implications for years to come.

"In a scathing dissent against the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision on Friday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor is clear about what just happened: The Trump administration set a trap for the court, and the conservative justices walked right into it," wrote Ali.

Sotomayor notes that the initial question that came to the court was whether the president has the power to limit birthright citizenship through an executive order. Three lower courts ruled that the order was unconstitutional. However, once the case reached the Supreme Court, the administration bent its argument to suggest that the nationwide injunctions preventing them from dismembering birthright citizenship were unconstitutional.

“The gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the Government makes no attempts to hide it,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. “Yet shamefully, this Court plays along."

Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined in Sotomayor's dissent.

The majority's acceptance of that gamesmanship, Sotomayor wrote, poses a grave threat to other rights Americans are guaranteed under the Constitution.

"Suppose an executive order barred women from receiving unemployment benefits or black citizens from voting," Sotomayor mused. "Is the Government irreparably harmed, and entitled to emergency relief, by a district court order universally enjoining such policies? The majority, apparently, would say yes."

Sotomayor also noted that Trump can use the ruling to effectively expand presidential powers beyond the limits of the law.

"This Court endorses the radical proposition that the President is harmed, irreparably, whenever he cannot do something he wants to do, even if what he wants to do is break the law," Sotomayor wrote.