A person stands with a US flag attached to them outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard – Nathan Howard/Reuters
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The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, marking the second time this year the issue has reached the justices.
For more than a century, the 14th Amendment has been understood to grant citizenship to anyone born on American soil. But in a new appeal, the administration argued that this interpretation was “mistaken” and has led to “destructive consequences.”
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the administration’s top appellate lawyer, said lower court rulings striking down the order undermined the president’s efforts to strengthen border security. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people,” Sauer wrote.
The appeal, reviewed by CNN but not yet formally docketed, follows a Supreme Court decision in June that dealt with procedural limits on lower courts’ ability to block presidential policies. That ruling narrowed but did not eliminate the power of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, prompting opponents of Trump’s birthright order to launch new challenges.
Since then, a series of federal court rulings has kept the order on hold. A San Francisco-based appeals court recently upheld a Seattle judge’s nationwide block, while a New Hampshire judge barred enforcement in a separate ACLU-backed class action. The administration has now filed appeals in both cases, pressing the justices to settle the issue once and for all.
The order, signed on January 20 and titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” directs the federal government not to issue citizenship documents to children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country illegally or only temporarily.
Opponents argue the policy contradicts the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. In the landmark 1898 case U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the Court ruled that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents was a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment. The Trump administration counters that this precedent has been misapplied for decades, contending it only covered children of parents with permanent residence in the United States.
So far, lower courts have rejected that argument. In July, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the order directly conflicts with the Constitution’s citizenship clause and long-standing legal precedent.
ACLU attorney Cody Wofsy, who argued the New Hampshire case, dismissed the administration’s appeal: “This executive order is illegal, full stop, and no amount of maneuvering from the administration is going to change that. We will continue to ensure that no baby’s citizenship is ever stripped away by this cruel and senseless order.”
The Justice Department has not yet responded to requests for comment.
