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Trump asks Supreme Court to OK partial plan to end birthright citizenship

By Ann E. Marimow and David Nakamura, The Washington Post

March 13, 2025, 3:40 pm CDT

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow U.S. officials to begin implementing a partial plan to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors.

Judges in three states—Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington—have issued nationwide orders blocking Trump’s executive order, which civil rights groups and Democratic-led states say is clearly at odds with the nation’s history and the Constitution.

The order, signed on Trump’s first day back in the White House, is part of the administration’s broad offensive against illegal immigration. It directs the government to no longer recognize automatic citizenship for the babies of immigrant parents who are in the country without authorization, provided that neither parent is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. The directive would also bar automatic citizenship for children born to noncitizen parents who are in the country on temporary work, student or tourist visas.

In its request to the Supreme Court, the administration asked the justices to limit the nationwide orders to the individuals or states involved in the litigation while those cases make their way through the court system, or to at least allow the relevant agencies to begin developing plans and issuing public guidance.

Nationwide court orders “prohibit a Day 1 Executive Order from being enforced anywhere in the country … [and] compromise the Executive Branch’s ability to carry out its functions,” acting solicitor general Sarah M. Harris told the justices.

The filing noted that Trump’s initiatives to dramatically shrink the size of the federal workforce, halt federal spending and dismantle federal agencies have faced forceful pushback from federal judges in more than 100 lawsuits nationwide. Those judges have issued more orders blocking Trump’s executive actions during February 2025, the filing said, than through the first three years of the Biden administration—a data point that is no doubt related to the volume of Trump’s executive actions since January.

“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current Administration,” Harris said, in what she described as a modest request for intervention while the lower court orders are appealed. “This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched.”

Presidents in both parties have complained about the power of a single judge to block an administration’s initiative nationwide. During Biden’s tenure, judges blocked his administration’s mask mandate for air travelers and a coronavirus vaccine mandate for certain workers.

The birthright citizenship cases involve the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War in 1868 to establish citizenship for freed Black Americans, as well as “all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The citizenship clause reversed the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which had denied citizenship to Black Americans.

Trump and his allies say they have the authority to ban birthright citizenship because unauthorized immigrants are in the country illegally and, therefore, are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States government. Since the 1990s, some restrictionist groups and Republican lawmakers have pressed to ban birthright citizenship, which they consider an incentive for people to enter the country illegally.

Most legal scholars, however, have rejected that analysis because noncitizens can be arrested and charged with crimes, put in jail or deported. There is also wide agreement that the argument conflicts with more than a century of Supreme Court precedent that protects citizenship for most everyone born on U.S. soil, except for the children of foreign diplomats.

The Supreme Court upheld the right to birthright citizenship in 1898 when it ruled for Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to parents of Chinese descent. The court said he was a U.S. citizen after he was denied reentry to the United States after a trip abroad.

The Trump administration is facing eight lawsuits against its birthright order, including two from coalitions of states and six from civil rights groups. Lawyers involved in the cases said the government had unsuccessfully sought, during the appeals process, to limit the scope of the injunctions. They say an estimated 153,000 children are born to two undocumented parents annually.

Cody Wofsy, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which won a separate injunction against the birthright citizenship order in a New Hampshire federal court last month, called Trump’s order “radically cruel and unconstitutional.”

“It’s disappointing that the Department of Justice continues to try to enforce it against babies being born across the country. We and the other organizations and entities bringing these suits will keep fighting until this executive order is finally laid to rest,” he said.

In the Washington State case, Judge John C. Coughenour of the U.S. District Court in Seattle said birthright citizenship “is a fundamental right, a constitutional right,” and criticized Trump for trampling on the Constitution to pursue “political or personal gain.”

Coughenour, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said the Trump administration must pursue a constitutional amendment if it wants to change the 14th Amendment—a step that would require ratification from a large majority of Congress and the states.

“The fact that the government cloaked what is in effect a constitutional amendment under the guise of an executive order is equally unconstitutional,” Coughenour said during a hearing in which he issued the nationwide injunction. “The Constitution is not something the government can play policy games with.”

His ruling is on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

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