Supreme Court will consider restrictions on birthright citizenship
By Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on April 17 [2025] said it would weigh in on the Trump administration;s request that it be allowed to broadly enforce its new restrictions on birthright citizenship while the policy is being litigated.
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The court said it will hear oral arguments May 15. [2025]
..... It's the first challenge to the new administration's policies that the justices have taken up for public discussion.
..... The administration has asked the court to scale back the nationwide actions that judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington issued to pause President Donald Trump's order denying citizenship to children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident.
..... The Justice Department said Trump should be able to enforce the policy for everyone except the people directly named in the lawsuits and those who lives in states hat have sued if the court thinks states have a legal right to challenge the order. The government also wanted to be able to develop guidance on how it will implement Trump's directive if it is upheld.
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Rather than focusing on the validity of Trump's executive action, the Justice department argued that a judge in one part of the country shouldn't be able to block actions nationally.
..... "years of experience have shown that the Executive branch cannot properly perform its functions if any judge anywhere can enjoin every presidential action everywhere," Sarah Harris, an attorney with the Justice Department, told the court.
..... Washington state Attorney General Nicholas Brown countered that citizenship rules must be uniform across the country. A patchwork rule is "unworkable" for states and, would leave tens of thousands of infants subject to removal or detention, even though the government has not shown it is likely to eventually win the court fight, he argued.
..... "If any injunction warranted a nationwide scope, it is this one," Brown wrote in his response to Trump's appeal.
..... The first federal judge to issue an opinion, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle, called Trump's order "blatantly unconstitutional."
..... An appeals court refused to pause Coughenour's nationwide injunction. Tow other appeals court likewise backed injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland and Massachusetts.
..... Trump has said the Supreme Court will intimately agree with his interpretation of the 14th Amendment's citizenship promise, a change he said is needed to bolster security along the southern U.S. broader.
..... The amendment sates 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."
..... The Trump administration maintains that right doesn't cover children of people who entered the country without proper authorization.