Supreme Court gives Trump a showdown on birthright citizenship 

WASHINGTON (CN) — After greenlighting its enforcement, the Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether President Donald Trump’s policy limiting birthright citizenship is constitutional.

The appeal sets up a constitutional showdown over the meaning of the 14th Amendment that could result in new limits on American citizenship for immigrants.

In a day-one executive order, Trump declared the children of individuals who do not have legal status or who possess temporary legal status would be excluded from the “priceless and profound gift” of United States citizenship. The White House said the new limits were justified because immigrants without legal status and foreigners participating in “birth tourism” had degraded the meaning and value of American citizenship.

Immigrants, Democratic states and mothers quickly sued to block the order from going into effect. Several lower courts issued nationwide injunctions prohibiting the policy from being enforced.

Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, but he only asked that the justices weigh in on whether universal injunctions — that allow a singular federal judge to issue nationwide orders — were lawful. In a sharply divided 6-3 ruling, the conservative majority nixed universal injunctions, allowing Trump to enforce limits on birthright citizenship without deciding whether his order was constitutional.

The lower courts swiftly responded, finding a variety of ways to keep Trump’s order paused without violating the Supreme Court’s June ruling. A Maryland court certified children who would be subjected to the policy into a class — a legal process that assesses the commonality between a group of people within a class action. Another court blocked the order within the states that have challenged the policy as unlawful.

An appeals court then ruled that Trump’s executive order unconstitutionally stripped the children of some individuals without legal status of their citizenship rights.

Despite agreement from the lower courts, Trump urged the Supreme Court to intervene again, framing his order as a major policy of his administration.

“The order forms an integral part of the administration’s broader effort to prevent illegal immigration,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote. “This court has previously granted review when lower courts have blocked similarly significant administration policies.”

Under the 14th Amendment, “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.” Trump claimed that people in the country illegally or temporarily are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and therefore are not necessarily citizens.

The justices acknowledged that the case would likely return to them on the merits, but the families and nonprofits challenging the order said there are good reasons to deny Trump’s appeal.

Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution, a federal statute and 127 years of Supreme Court precedent. The vast majority of scholars considered birthright citizenship settled in 1898 when the Supreme Court upheld the right for children of noncitizens in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

The families and nonprofits said that Wong Kim Ark already rejected Trump’s arguments.

“Petitioners offer no substantial reason to doubt Wong Kim Ark’s holding or its application to the categories targeted by the order,” the families and nonprofits wrote. “Their case amounts to little more than a jumble of historical misstatements, inapposite citations, newly manufactured doctrines, and — more than anything else — policy preferences.”

Follow @KelseyReichmann Follow @kelseyreichmann.bsky.social