The Supreme Court said Friday it will consider the Trump administration's request to allow restrictions on birthright citizenship to take effect in part while legal fights play out.
In their virtually identical filings Thursday, acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris urged the justices to partially block preliminary injunctions, issued by federal district judges in Washington state, Maryland, and Massachusetts, that bar the government from implementing Trump's Inauguration Day executive order on birthright citizenship anywhere in the country.
The court, which had the option of rejecting the request, signaled it would consider the appeal by ordering responses from states and organizations that have challenged the constitutionality of Trump's order to be submitted by April 4, multiple media outlets reported.
Rather than asking the Supreme Court to uphold the president's executive order, the administration is requesting that court rulings in the three states be narrowed so that a judge's ruling in one state does not have the authority to overturn the executive order nationwide, according to the Washington Examiner.
If the Supreme Court decides in favor of the White House, Trump's executive order would take effect outside of the three states.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution 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."
Under Trump's executive order, which was set to begin 30 days after he signed it, children born in the U.S. are not automatically entitled to citizenship if their parents are in the country either illegally or temporarily.
Harris urged the justices to "correct the district court's massive remedial foul," SCOTUSBlog reported. Over the past few years, several justices — including Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh — have criticized nationwide or universal injunctions and urged their colleagues to weigh in on their legality.
Harris contended such nationwide injunctions "transgress constitutional limits on courts' powers" and "compromise the Executive Branch's ability to carry out its functions," according to SCOTUSBlog. "This Court," she wrote, "should declare that enough is enough before district courts' burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched."
Harris urged the justices to strictly limit the district judges' orders to block enforcement of the order only to a smaller group: the individual plaintiffs in the three cases, the specific members of the groups challenging the order who are identified in a complaint, and — if the court agrees that states have a legal right to challenge the order — residents of those states.
At the very least, she wrote the federal government should be able to take "internal steps to implement" the executive order while the litigation continues, even if it cannot enforce it.