The Supreme Court on Thursday scheduled a rare hearing for next month on the Trump administration’s bid to narrow nationwide injunctions against the president’s attempt to curb birthright citizenship protections.
The court typically concludes oral arguments in April each term, but Thursday’s order sets the rare hearing for May 15. The justices typically publish the term’s final rulings by July, so between that and the fact that this appeal concerns emergency applications, we could learn the high court’s thinking on the subject relatively soon.
The issue in this appeal is technically about the nationwide injunctions, not the merits of the birthright citizenship issue, but the citizenship issue permeates the case, and the court’s handling of the appeal could have practical consequences for President Donald Trump’s attempt to curb the constitutional right.
Contrary to a long-held understanding and practice of automatic citizenship for people born in the U.S., Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order said it wouldn’t automatically extend:
(1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary . . . and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.
The administration had appealed to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis, seeking to narrow the nationwide scope of lower court rulings blocking birthright citizenship restrictions from taking effect while litigation about its legality moves forward. The justices Thursday deferred ruling on the applications pending the hearing, meaning Trump’s attempted restrictions stay halted for now.
“These cases — which involve challenges to the President’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order concerning birthright citizenship — raise important constitutional questions with major ramifications for securing the border,” the administration wrote. It said that “at this stage, the government comes to this Court with a ‘modest’ request: while the parties litigate weighty merits questions, the Court should ‘restrict the scope’ of multiple preliminary injunctions that ‘purpor[t] to cover every person … in the country,’ limiting those injunctions to parties actually within the courts’ power.”
The administration in March filed nearly identical applications in three cases in which lower courts ruled against Trump: in Maryland, Washington state and Massachusetts.
The federal government under Trump has appealed to the justices in several cases, expressing frustration with lower court rulings against the government.
“This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched,” the administration wrote, adding that the justices “should stay the district courts’ preliminary injunctions except as to the individual plaintiffs and the identified members of the organizational plaintiffs (and, if the Court concludes that States are proper litigants, as to individuals who are born or reside in those States).” The government urged the court “at a minimum” to halt the injunctions “to the extent they prohibit agencies from developing and issuing public guidance regarding the implementation of the Order.” One of the opposition filings to the government’s application, from the Maryland case, said there’s nothing “modest” about the government’s request, noting that birthright citizenship is “at the core of our Nation’s foundational precept that all people born on our soil are created equal, regardless of their parentage.” The opposition wrote that the universal injunction “preserves the uniformity of United States citizenship, an area in which nationwide consistency is vitally important” and that “chaos” would ensue if the court granted the motion. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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