Multiple federal judges have successfully blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, prompting the Justice Department to file a Supreme Court appeal on Friday seeking to overturn the lower court decisions.
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The nationwide injunctions issued by district court judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington state have prevented Trump’s January executive order from taking effect after legal challenges argued the policy violated the Constitution.
The core legal dispute centres on the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states that “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 argues that the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes children of people not in the country permanently or lawfully. Supporters of birthright citizenship contend the order directly violates the constitutional amendment.
In its Friday filing, the Justice Department argued that the lower court rulings “invalidated a policy of prime importance” to the administration “in a manner that undermines our border security.”
The department added that the injunctions rewarded “the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”
Trump signed the order on his first day back in office in January, denying citizenship to children of migrants who are either in the US illegally or on temporary visas. The policy represents a significant departure from the longstanding US practice of granting citizenship to anyone born on American soil.
The appeal comes after the Supreme Court ruled in June that a federal judge cannot block a presidential order, following a challenge brought by Trump officials. However, the decision still allows judicial blocks through certain legal avenues, permitting judges to block orders from taking effect for people who sue against them while their lawsuits proceed.
The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to take up and resolve the case in its new term, which starts on October 6.
According to Pew Research, about 250,000 babies were born to unauthorised immigrant parents in the United States in 2016 – a 36% decrease from a peak in 2007. By 2022, the latest year that data is available, there were 1.2 million US citizens born to unauthorised immigrant parents.
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a think tank, found that the cumulative effect of ending birthright citizenship could potentially increase the number of unauthorised immigrants in the country to 4.7 million by 2050, as those children also have children.
In an interview with NBC‘s Meet the Press last December, Trump said he thought the children of unauthorised immigrants should be deported alongside their parents, even if they were born in the US.
“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together, and you have to send them all back.”
Featured image: Nathan Howard/Reuters
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