Supreme Court allows Trump to partially enforce birthright citizenship order 

The Supreme Court on Friday in a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines allowed President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship to go into effect in some areas of the country, for now, by curtailing judges’ ability to block the president’s policies nationwide. 

Ruling that three federal district judges went too far in issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump’s order, the high court’s decision claws back a key tool that plaintiffs have used to hamper the president’s agenda in dozens of lawsuits. 

But it does not yet definitively resolve whether Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional, a hefty legal question that could ultimately return to the justices. 

For now, however, the justices narrowed the lower court rulings to only block Trump’s order as applied to the 22 Democratic-led states, expectant mothers and immigration organizations that are suing. 

Signed on his first day in office, Trump’s order curbs birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil if they don’t have at least one parent with permanent legal status. The sweeping restrictions upend the conventional understanding of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, long recognized to only have few exceptions. 

Every court to directly confront the legality of Trump’s order so far has found it likely unconstitutional. The administration went to the Supreme Court on its emergency docket to narrow nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Greenbelt, Md., Seattle and Boston. 

The cases will now return to the lower courts for further proceedings as Trump’s order partially goes into effect. The parties could bring the case back to the justices once the appeals courts issue their final rulings. 

In a rare move, the high court agreed to hear oral arguments in the case, despite typically handling emergency applications solely based on a round of written briefing. The arguments took place in May, a special session scheduled after the normal window that ended in April. 

The Trump administration raised alarm about the dozens of nationwide injunctions imposed by judges since the president’s inauguration, a sharp rise that the Justice Department insisted demonstrates judicial overreach intruding on Trump’s authority. 

Trump’s critics, however, have pushed back, saying the smattering of court injunctions reflects that the president has been acting lawlessly on birthright citizenship and other areas.