The federal government argues that the president’s stalled executive order restricting birthright citizenship is constitutional.
The Trump administration filed a second appeal asking the Supreme Court to look at whether President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order is constitutional.
The federal government’s new petition in Trump v. Barbara was docketed by the court on Sept. 29.
The new petition was docketed after the government filed a petition in a related case, Trump v. State of Washington, with the Supreme Court on Sept. 26.
Trump’s Executive Order 14160, signed on Jan. 20, states that “the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”
According to the order, an individual born in the United States is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” if that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the country and the individual’s father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the person’s birth.
It also states that the privilege of U.S. citizenship does not apply to an individual whose mother’s presence was lawful but temporary and whose father was neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident at the time of that individual’s birth.
The executive order has prompted debate over the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, which states, “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 Supreme Court previously partly allowed the executive order on June 27 in a decision that said universal injunctions likely exceed the courts’ authority.
The 6–3 decision in that case, Trump v. CASA Inc., didn’t provide a definitive ruling on the constitutionality of the president’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship but instead focused on whether three nationwide injunctions blocking the policy could stand.
In the new petition, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to review a preliminary injunction blocking the executive order.
