WASHINGTON (States Newsroom) — The Trump administration Thursday called on the U.S. Supreme Court to limit the scope of three nationwide injunctions from lower courts against the president’s executive order ending the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.
It’s the first time the administration has asked the high court to intervene in cases challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that aims to redefine birthright citizenship, under which children born in the United States are legal citizens.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris is asking the Supreme Court to scale back the nationwide injunctions to apply to only the individual plaintiffs in the cases brought before federal courts in Maryland and Washington, or 18 people.
The Trump administration is asking for a full stay of a third suit filed by Democratic attorneys general in Massachusetts.
Harris argued “universal injunctions compromise the Executive Branch’s ability to carry out its functions….”
“These cases — which involve challenges to the President’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order concerning birthright citizenship — raise important constitutional questions with major ramifications for securing the border,” she wrote in her emergency request. “At a minimum, this Court should stay all three preliminary injunctions to the extent they prohibit executive agencies from developing and issuing guidance explaining how they would implement the Citizenship Order in the event that it takes effect.”
Appeals underway
The Trump administration has appealed to the 4th Circuit of Appeals the case from Maryland, brought by two nonprofits — Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and CASA — that represent five women who are currently pregnant and do not have legal status. Other individual plaintiffs belong to the two organizations.
The Department of Justice has also appealed to the 1st Circuit the case out of Massachusetts brought by Democratic attorneys general.
The third case is in Washington state and the Trump administration has appealed to the 9th Circuit. It was filed by attorneys general from Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington state and includes two individual plaintiffs.
The executive order that brought a flurry of legal challenges says that the federal government will not recognize or issue citizenship documentation to any child born after Feb. 19 to parents who are in the country without proper authorization, or if the parent is in the United States on a temporary visa and the other parent is a noncitizen or green card holder.
14th Amendment
The Supreme Court in 1898 upheld the 14th Amendment, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, extending birthright citizenship.
In that case, Ark was born in San Francisco, California, to parents who were citizens of the Republic of China, but had legal authority to be in the country. Ark’s citizenship was not recognized when he left the United States and he was denied reentry due to the Chinese Exclusion Act— a racist law designed to restrict and limit nearly all immigration of Chinese nationals.
The high court ruled that children born in the United States to parents who were not citizens automatically become citizens at birth.
Attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration have argued that the case was misinterpreted.
The Trump administration contends that the phrase in the 14th Amendment means that birthright citizenship only applies to children born to parents who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. That would mean, under their view, people in the U.S. without legal status or temporary legal status are “subject to the jurisdiction” of their country of origin.
