The Supreme Court announced that it would hear arguments over President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, with the justices setting oral arguments for May 15.
The big picture: President Trump issued the executive order on his first day in office, seeking to end birthright citizenship for certain children, focusing on children of immigrants in the country without legal permission and foreign residents.
- The Trump administration filed three emergency applications with the Supreme Court, challenging lower court decisions to extend bans on the policy beyond the litigating parties without asking the court to rule on the executive order’s constitutionality.
Driving the news: Birthright citizenship, rooted in the 14th Amendment, has historically been a fundamental aspect of the United States, affirmed in the landmark case United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898.
- Legal challenges against Trump’s executive order led to temporary nationwide injunctions issued by federal courts in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Washington state, creating a legal skirmish over the president’s executive power and the validity of nationwide injunctions.
- The Solicitor General, John Sauer, argued that nationwide injunctions represented an overreach of judicial authority and encroached on the president’s constitutional powers, calling for the Supreme Court’s intervention to rebalance separated powers.
- On the other side, attorneys representing Washington state, Arizona, and Oregon rejected the government’s arguments, portraying the administration’s focus on nationwide injunctions as myopic and not justifying a stay, emphasizing the longstanding understanding of birthright citizenship.
