President Donald Trump praised the U.S. Supreme Court in June for a “monumental victory” when it rolled back nationwide injunctions towards his govt order making an attempt to finish birthright citizenship.
Three months later, after two federal courts universally blocked the order once more on different grounds, Trump is asking the justices for a definitive judgment on his reinterpretation of greater than a century of settled authorized precedent.
In filings, reviewed by ABC Information Sunday however not but on the Supreme Court docket’s public docket, Solicitor Common John Sauer urges the justices to provide expedited consideration to Trump’s enchantment and a call by subsequent summer season.
“The federal government has a compelling curiosity in making certain that American citizenship—the privilege that enables us to decide on our political leaders—is granted solely to those that are lawfully entitled to it,” Sauer wrote in a petition for writ of certiorari.
“The decrease courtroom’s selections invalidated a coverage of prime significance to the President and his Administration in a fashion that undermines our border safety,” he wrote. “These selections confer, with out lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on tons of of hundreds of unqualified folks.”
Justices of the Supreme Court docket pose for his or her official picture on the Supreme Court docket in Washington, D.C., Oct. 7, 2022. (Seated from left) Affiliate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Affiliate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Affiliate Justice Samuel Alito and Affiliate Justice Elena Kagan, (Standing behind from left) Affiliate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Affiliate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Affiliate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Affiliate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Olivier Douliery/AFP through Getty Pictures
Courts and the federal government have lengthy interpreted the 14th Modification’s citizenship clause to use to anybody born within the U.S., whatever the immigration standing of a kid’s dad and mom.
The Amendment, ratified after the Civil Warfare, states that each one “individuals born or naturalized within the United States, and topic to the jurisdiction thereof, are residents of the US and of the state whereby they reside.”
On his first day in workplace, Trump signed an govt order unilaterally declaring that solely newborns whose dad and mom have everlasting authorized standing are “topic to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and due to this fact eligible to be residents.
An estimated 255,000 kids are born on U.S. soil every year to a number of dad and mom with out American citizenship or everlasting authorized standing, in line with the Penn State Social Science Analysis Institute.
The administration will not be looking for to start implementing the manager order till the Supreme Court docket decides whether or not or to not take up the case and finally render judgment — a call doubtless months away.
Individuals maintain an indication as they take part in a protest exterior the US Supreme Court docket over President Donald Trump’s transfer to finish birthright citizenship because the courtroom hears arguments over the order in Washington, DC, on Might 15, 2025. Trump issued an govt order on his first day in workplace looking for to restrict birthright citizenship for kids whose dad and mom are in the US illegally or on short-term visas, however it has been blocked in a number of appellate courts. He appealed the case to the Supreme Court docket on March 13.
Drew Angerer/AFP through Getty Pictures
“This govt order is against the law, full cease, and no quantity of maneuvering from the administration goes to alter that,” stated Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Undertaking, in a press release. “We’ll proceed to make sure that nobody child’s citizenship is ever stripped away by this merciless and mindless order.”
A federal choose in New Hampshire in July ruled that Trump’s order plainly seems to violate the Structure and blocked enforcement of it in a class-action go well with that covers all kids who could be affected.
A separate ruling by a federal appeals courtroom, additionally in July, blocked enforcement of the order nationwide, saying {that a} group of state plaintiffs may solely be shielded from the citizenship restrictions in the event that they have been put universally on maintain.
The administration instructed the Supreme Court docket it seeks to enchantment each instances.
The plaintiffs in every case — the ACLU and Washington State legal professional common — supplied ABC Information with copies of the federal government’s filings.
In 1898, the Supreme Court docket beforehand addressed the query of citizenship for kids born to non-citizens on U.S. soil, ruling within the landmark case U.S. v Wong Kim Ark that they’re People underneath the regulation.
President Donald Trump gestures, as he arrives at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, September 26, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
“The [14th] Modification, in clear phrases and in manifest intent, consists of the kids born, throughout the territory of the US, of all different individuals, of no matter race or coloration, domiciled inside the US,” wrote Justice Horace Grey for the 6-2 majority. “Each citizen or topic of one other nation, whereas domiciled right here, is throughout the allegiance and the safety, and consequently topic to the jurisdiction, of the US.”
The Trump administration is making an attempt to argue that there’s wiggle room in that precedent to nonetheless exclude from citizenship kids born to short-term guests and unlawful aliens.
“The reliance curiosity for the entire people who find themselves already right here in the US to whom birthright citizenship is a cherished proper, and for the nation prospectively – this is able to be an earthquake if the Supreme Court docket have been to rule in Trump’s favor,” stated Hofstra Legislation professor, constitutional scholar, and ABC Information authorized contributor James Pattern.
“I do not see that occuring,” Pattern stated. “On a political stage, nonetheless, Trump doubtless sees this as favorable floor within the sense that even when he loses on the regulation, even when he loses within the Supreme Court docket, a lot of his political allies would see this because the form of purple meat political combat that they relish, and he would like to run towards a loss.”
