The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to decide whether the president can end birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship. This marks the second time this year the issue has returned to the high court.
For more than a century, the 14th Amendment has been interpreted to grant citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., but the administration argues this understanding is “mistaken” and has had “destructive consequences.”
Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that lower court rulings blocking the order undermined border security and wrongly extended citizenship to “hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”
In June, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling that narrowed, but did not eliminate, lower courts’ power to halt presidential policies. That decision has led to a wave of new lawsuits keeping Trump’s order on hold.
The administration is now urging the court to settle the matter definitively, as legal battles over the policy continue.