In a bold move, President Trump has called upon the US Supreme Court to step in on the hot-button issue of birthright citizenship. This comes after four federal judges have put a stop to his executive order aimed at addressing this matter.
President Trump’s executive order contends that the 14th Amendment is wrongly interpreted by liberal agendas to grant citizenship to ‘anchor babies.’ The order specifies that no US government department should acknowledge citizenship for individuals if:
- The individual’s mother was unlawfully present in the US and the father was not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of birth.
- The mother’s presence was lawful but temporary, and the father was not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of birth.
The order emphasizes that the 14th Amendment historically excludes those born to individuals illegally in the US. It states:
“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ Consistent with this understanding, the Congress has further specified through legislation that ‘a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ is a national and citizen of the United States at birth, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.”
After an Appeals Court failed to terminate birthright citizenship last month, President Trump took decisive action by escalating the matter to the US Supreme Court. He has requested the Court to lift the nationwide injunctions put in place by the lower federal courts.
According to Fox News, Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris articulated the administration’s rationale:
“These cases – which involve challenges to the President’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order concerning birthright citizenship – raise important constitutional questions with major ramifications for securing the border,” Harris wrote. “But at this stage, the government comes to this Court with a ‘modest’ request: while the parties litigate weighty merits questions, the Court should ‘restrict the scope’ of multiple preliminary injunctions that ‘purpor[t] to cover every person in the country,’ limiting those injunctions to parties actually within the courts’ power.”
Fox News further reported that the Trump administration sought the Supreme Court’s intervention to allow a narrowed version of his executive order on birthright citizenship, challenging the broad injunctions issued in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington state.
Judges in these states acted swiftly to block President Trump’s order, which he issued on his first day in office. The administration argues that the nationwide reach of these rulings is overly expansive and has requested the Supreme Court to confine the rulings’ scope to those directly affected.
