The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Thursday that it will weigh in on the Trump administration’s request to broadly enforce new restrictions on birthright citizenship, even as multiple legal challenges against the policy play out in lower courts. The justices will hear oral arguments on the matter on May 15.
This marks the first instance in which the Supreme Court has agreed to publicly review one of the new administration’s controversial policies, stepping into a legal battle that has already prompted federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington to issue nationwide injunctions halting the policy.
What the Trump Administration Is Asking the Court
The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to scale back the reach of the injunctions. Specifically, it argues that the policy—though under legal challenge—should be enforceable for individuals not explicitly named in lawsuits, and in states that have not themselves sued over the directive.
The Justice Department also wants to be permitted to issue implementation guidelines for the policy in the event that the Supreme Court ultimately upholds it.
Notably, the administration’s request is not focused on the legality of the executive order itself. Instead, the Justice Department contends that no single federal judge should have the power to impose a nationwide block on a presidential directive.
“Years of experience have shown that the Executive Branch cannot properly perform its functions if any judge anywhere can enjoin every presidential action everywhere,” said Sarah Harris, an attorney representing the Justice Department.
Birthright Citizenship: The Argument for Uniformity in Citizenship Policy
State attorneys general and immigrant rights advocates argue that the stakes are too high for a piecemeal approach. Nicholas Brown, the Attorney General of Washington state, pushed back strongly, asserting that citizenship rules must be consistent nationwide.
According to Brown, allowing the policy to go into effect only in certain areas would create chaos for states and threaten the legal status of potentially tens of thousands of infants, exposing them to removal or detention.“If any injunction warranted a nationwide scope, it is this one,” Brown wrote in his response to the Trump administration’s appeal.
Lower Courts Have Blocked the Birthright Citizenship Policy
Three separate federal judges—based in Seattle, Maryland, and Massachusetts—have issued injunctions against the policy. The first to do so was U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle, who described the Trump directive as “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Subsequent appeals courts refused to pause Coughenour’s ruling and upheld similar injunctions issued in the other two states.
Trump’s Stance: A Constitutional Revision for Border Security
Former President Donald Trump has defended the policy as a necessary reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to strengthen security along the southern U.S. border.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, states:
“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’s administration contends that this language was originally intended to confer citizenship only to formerly enslaved people after the Emancipation Proclamation—not to children of individuals who entered the country without proper authorization.
According to the administration, this broader interpretation of birthright citizenship has fueled so-called “birth tourism”—a practice where expectant mothers travel to the U.S. with the specific intention of securing citizenship for their children.
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