The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow a partial implementation of its plan to end birthright citizenship while legal battles play out.
In a series of emergency filings, acting solicitor general Sarah Harris asked the Supreme Court to restrict universal injunctions issued by lower courts in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington that have blocked attempts to end birthright citizenship throughout the country.
Instead, Harris argued, justices should allow the administration’s plan to take effect for everyone except the parties involved in the lawsuits to block the end of birthright citizenship.
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“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current Administration,” Harris wrote. “That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court’s emergency docket.”
Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship on his first day back in office as part of his administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigration.
Judge John Coughenour in Washington, one of the three who blocked the order, described the plan as “blatantly unconstitutional.” Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland said it “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year-old binding Supreme Court precedent and runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth.”
The 14th amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The administration argued in its emergency appeals that the clause should not extend to children of unauthorized migrants, who they say are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. government. This argument has largely been rejected by legal scholars and conflicts with Supreme Court precedent.
“That policy of near-universal birthright citizenship has created strong incentives for illegal immigration,” Harris said. “And it has raised national-security concerns by extending U.S. citizenship to persons who lack meaningful ties to the country.”
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court several times to intervene in efforts to block its controversial moves, including the firing of the Office of the Special Counsel chief and the freeze in foreign aid funding.
