Trump continues his efforts to deny birthright citizenship

The Trump administration wants the justices to reconsider his citizenship executive order.

Donald Trump continues to promote his divisive proposal to abolish birthright citizenship. His administration formally submitted motions to the Supreme Court today, asking the justices to consider his executive order that prevents children born in the nation from automatically obtaining U.S. citizenship unless at least one parent is a citizen or lawful resident.

As soon as Trump signed the executive order on his first day back in office in January 2025, a flurry of litigation began. The decision was swiftly overturned by federal courts nationwide, citing a contradiction with the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

However, Trump’s legal team is stepping up their efforts. They said in today’s filing that the lower court decisions were overly expansive and went too far in preventing the program from being implemented countrywide. The government maintains that the Supreme Court should rule whether Trump can use executive power to redefine birthright citizenship.

The justices are being urged to intervene in the matter for the second time this year. The Supreme Court held in Trump v. CASA, Inc. back in June that federal judges cannot arbitrarily grant broad countrywide injunctions that prohibit presidential policy unless doing so is the only option to fully relieve the plaintiffs. The constitutional question of whether Trump’s order is lawful was left unanswered by that decision, which sent some of the birthright citizenship claims to lower courts.

The administration now wants the Court to hear that constitutional dispute directly. The stakes are extremely high if the justices decide to consider the case. A decision in Trump’s favor might essentially nullify a fundamental aspect of the 14th Amendment, which has been used to define American citizenship for more than 150 years.