Trump Admin Brings Birthright Citizenship Back to Court

“Birthright citizenship” finds itself back in court yet again, with the administration asking the Supreme Court to decide whether President Donald Trump can constitutionally ban the practice. 

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed petitions Friday asking the court to take up two separate cases in which lower court judges blocked Trump from eliminating birthright citizenship. 

“The government has a compelling interest in ensuring that American citizenship—the privilege that allows us to choose our political leaders—is granted only to those who are lawfully entitled to it,” Sauer wrote. 

“The lower court’s decisions … confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.” 

Birthright citizenship is the theory that anyone born in the U.S. automatically receives citizenship privileges under the 14th Amendment.  

The Trump administration and others say that’s not what the 14th Amendment means—so on Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies not to issue identification documents to children born to illegal or temporary aliens on or after Feb. 20, 2025. 

The high court already considered that order earlier this year in Trump v. CASA.

But in that case, the court shied away from addressing whether Trump can constitutionally ban birthright citizenship, instead focusing on whether federal judges could issue universal injunctions preventing the administration from carrying out the president’s orders nationwide—as opposed to simply preventing the orders within their own district boundaries. 

In the CASA case, the Supreme Court said that federal courts likely do not have the authority to issue such injunctions. 

Now, Sauer asks the court to consider birthright citizenship again—and this time, to decide whether Trump can ban the practice. 

Sauer’s appeal comes in two cases where lower federal courts blocked the order—one in Washington State and one in New Hampshire. 

In the Washington case, a district court issued a universal preliminary injunction against the order. That injunction was later upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though the appeals court limited the order’s scope following the Supreme Court’s CASA decision. 

In the New Hampshire case, a district judge issued a similar injunction but certified a class of all children born in the United States after Feb. 20, 2025, and applied the injunction to them—a way of blocking the order entirely without issuing a nationwide injunction. 

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