A contentious dispute surrounding President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship has reached the nation's highest court.
According to CBS News, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next month to determine whether the Trump administration can partially enforce its executive order limiting birthright citizenship while legal challenges proceed through lower courts.
The Justice Department seeks to modify three nationwide injunctions that currently block the implementation of Trump's directive, which aims to deny automatic citizenship to children born to mothers who are either unlawfully present in the U.S. or temporarily residing on legal status, as well as those whose fathers are neither citizens nor permanent residents.
The executive order, signed during Trump's first day back in office, has faced immediate legal opposition from multiple fronts. Three federal district courts in Washington, Maryland, and Massachusetts issued nationwide injunctions preventing the government from executing the order.
Federal appeals courts in San Francisco, Boston, and Richmond subsequently denied the administration's requests to partially lift these injunctions. The administration's emergency appeals to the Supreme Court aim to limit the order's enforcement to 28 states and individuals not involved in ongoing litigation.
Then-acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris emphasized the administration's concerns about the widespread use of nationwide injunctions, arguing they impede executive branch functions and Trump's ability to address border security issues.
Eighteen states, along with the District of Columbia and San Francisco, have strongly condemned the administration's request to the Supreme Court. They characterize the move as an unprecedented attempt to strip citizenship rights from American-born children.
Two prominent immigrants' rights organizations, CASA Inc and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, submitted filings questioning the urgency of the government's request. The groups emphasized the historical precedent of birthright citizenship.
From the immigrants' rights groups' filing:
The Executive Branch has been complying with the settled interpretation of the Citizenship Clause for 125 years, and the government has demonstrated no urgent need to change now. Whether a child is a citizen of our nation should not depend on the state where she is born or the associations her parents have joined.
The Justice Department's stance against nationwide injunctions has become increasingly aggressive. Harris articulated the administration's position in court documents:
Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current administration. Courts have graduated from universal preliminary injunctions to universal temporary restraining orders, from universal equitable relief to universal monetary remedies, and from governing the whole nation to governing the whole world.
The administration argues these broad injunctions create incentives for illegal immigration by maintaining the prospect of American citizenship for children of unlawful migrants and subsequent immigration benefits for the parents themselves.
The Supreme Court's upcoming hearing on May 15 will determine whether the Trump administration can partially implement its controversial birthright citizenship executive order. The directive seeks to fundamentally alter the long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which has guaranteed citizenship to all individuals born on U.S. soil for over a century.
As the case moves forward, more than 800,000 members of immigrants' rights groups across all states await a decision that could dramatically impact the future of American citizenship and immigration policy.
