Supreme Court could block Trump’s birthright citizenship order
Legal Business News
The Supreme Court seemed intent Thursday on keeping a block on President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship while looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders.
It was unclear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about would happen if the Trump administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally.
The justices heard arguments in the Trump administration’s emergency appeals over lower court orders that have kept the citizenship restrictions on hold across the country. Nationwide, or universal, injunctions have emerged as an important check on Trump’s efforts to remake the government and a mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies.
Judges have issued 40 nationwide injunctions since Trump began his second term in January, Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court at the start of more than two hours of arguments.
Birthright citizenship is among several issues, many related to immigration, that the administration has asked the court to address on an emergency basis.
The justices are also considering the Trump administration’s pleas to end humanitarian parole for more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and to strip other temporary legal protections from another 350,000 Venezuelans. The administration remains locked in legal battles over its efforts to swiftly deport people accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term that would deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are in the country illegally or temporarily.
The order conflicts with a Supreme Court decision from 1898 that held that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment made citizens of all children born on U.S. with narrow exceptions that are not at issue in this case.
States, immigrants and rights group sued almost immediately, and lower courts quickly barred enforcement of the order while the lawsuits proceed. The court’s liberal justices seemed firmly in support of the lower court rulings that found the changes to citizenship that Trump wants to make would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years.
Birthright citizenship is an odd case to use to scale back nationwide injunctions, Justice Elena Kagan said. “Every court has ruled against you,” she told Sauer.
But if the government wins on today’s arguments, it could still enforce the order against people who haven’t sued, Kagan said. “All of those individuals are going to win. And the ones who can’t afford to go to court, they’re the ones who are going to lose,” she said
Several conservative justices who might be open to limiting nationwide injunctions also wanted to know the practical effects of such a decision as well as how quickly the court could reach a final decision on the Trump executive order.
Related listings
-
Justice Dept. moves to cancel police reform settlements reached with Minneapolis
Civil Rights 05/21/2025The Justice Department moved Wednesday to cancel a settlement with Minneapolis that called for an overhaul of its police department following the murder of George Floyd, as well as a similar agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, saying it doesn’...
-
Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans from South Texas
Civil Rights 05/07/2025A federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans from South Texas under an 18th-century wartime law and said President Donald Trump’s invocation of it was “unlawful.”U.S. District Court Judg...
-
Two major law firms urge judges to permanently block Trump’s executive orders
Law Reviews 04/26/2025Two major law firms asked separate judges Wednesday to permanently block President Donald Trump’s executive orders that were meant to punish them and harm their business operations.The firms — Perkins Coie and WilmerHale — say the o...