Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Allow End of Birthright...

If the justices were to take the case, the court could hear arguments on the matter during its upcoming term, which is set to begin in early October. Decisions are typically announced by late June or early July. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration’s request set up a key test for the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly allowed central pieces of Mr. Trump’s agenda to proceed on a temporary emergency basis, even as their legality is tested by the courts. If the justices accept the birthright citizenship cases, they would offer a final verdict as to whether Mr. Trump’s order was constitutional, a case that could define what it means to be an American. “If and when the court takes up birthright citizenship, the president will be going against the U.S. Constitution, a 127-year-old Supreme Court precedent and an act of Congress, and he will lose,” said Cecillia Wang, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is among the groups challenging the executive order. The Trump administration appeals stem from lower court litigation over an executive order signed by Mr. Trump when he returned to office in January. The order, which would end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents, faced immediate legal challenges. Mr. Trump’s order appeared to collide with the common understanding of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to guarantee citizenship for all and reversed a now-notorious court decision that had deprived Black people born in the United States of that right. The amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are Americans.