The Latest: Supreme Court hears arguments in case over Trump's birthright citizenship order

Independent

15-05-2025

The Supreme Court is hearing its first set of Trump-related arguments in the second Trump presidency. The case stems from the executive order President Donald Trump issued on his first day in office that would deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily. The executive order marks a major change to the provision of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to people born in the United States, with just a couple of exceptions.
Immigrants, rights groups and states sued almost immediately to challenge the executive order. Federal judges have uniformly cast doubt on Trump's reading of the Citizenship Clause. Three judges have blocked the order from taking effect anywhere in the U.S., including U.S. District Judge John Coughenour. 'I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,' Coughenour said at a hearing in his Seattle courtroom.
The Supreme Court is taking up emergency appeals filed by the Trump administration asking to be able to enforce the executive order in most of the country, at least while lawsuits over the order proceed. The constitutionality of the order is not before the court just yet. Instead, the justices are looking at potentially limiting the authority of individual judges to issue rulings that apply throughout the United States. These are known as nationwide, or universal, injunctions.
Court is adjourned
After a short rebuttal from Sauer, arguments are now complete after more than two hours. The Supreme Court typically rules in all its argued cases by the end of June and this one shouldn't be any different. After oral arguments today, it's not out of the question that the court could make a decision on this quickly, but we can't know for sure.
The attorney representing private individuals and immigrants makes their case
After the states finished their case, Kelsi Corkran, the attorney for pregnant women and immigrant-rights groups fighting Trump's executive order, used her 15 minutes to make her case. Corkran said every judge who has considered the issue has found Trump's order is 'blatantly unlawful' and asked the justices to block the effort to begin enforcing it.
Kavanaugh suggested that people who want to challenge the birthright citizenship order might not need nationwide injunctions.
Instead, they could bind together and file class-action lawsuits. 'That seems to solve the issue for preliminary relief,' he said. Corkran pushes back. 'That is not actually addressing the court's emergency docket. It's just now we're slapping a label of class certification on it,' she said.
A series of questions from Alito at one point seemed to hint at the many other cases the Trump administration is now appealing to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis. Lower-court judges can be 'vulnerable to an occupational disease,' of believing they can do whatever they want, he said.
Even if their decisions are wrong, he said, appeals courts can be reluctant to act quickly to block them. He seemed to suggest that includes his own colleagues on the Supreme Court.
'How do we deal with that practical problem?' he said.
Corkran argues it wouldn't. The government hasn't said how they would enforce the order against everyone except the handful of people who sued, much less how they would filter out parents who are part of the groups that have sued, she argued.
Even if there were a way, it would likely mean the government would be able to identify the women as non-citizens. That would put many at risk for potential deportation, she said.
Trump's Solicitor General wraps up his opening and his challenger steps up
Justice Kavanaugh pressed Sauer with a series of questions about exactly how the federal government might enforce Trump's order.
'What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn?' he said. Sauer said they wouldn't necessarily do anything different, but the government might figure out ways to reject documentation with 'the wrong designation of citizenship.'
Kavanaugh continued to press for clearer answers, pointing out that the executive order only gave the government about 30 days to develop a policy. 'You think they can get it together in time?' he said.
Justice Brown Jackson appeared deeply skeptical of Sauer's argument.
'Your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view at least, into a catch me if you can kind of regime … where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people's rights,' she said to Sauer.
New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum stepped up to make his case after justices peppered Sauer with questions. He is arguing on behalf of the states that say they'll lose millions of dollars in benefits available to U.S. children and also have to overhaul identification systems. Feigenbaum asserted in his opening that the 'post-Civil War nation wrote into our Constitution that citizens of the United States and of the States would be one and the same without variation across state lines.'
Feigenbaum told the justices that judges should be able to issue orders that affect the whole country, but only in narrow circumstances. Roberts jumps on that last point, asking him to elaborate on why they should only be used sparingly — a question that could be a clue as to how the chief justice is thinking about the issue.
Justices try to pin down Solicitor Sauer's argument
Justice Kagan cut to the heart of the case by asking Sauer that, if the court concludes Trump's order is illegal, how the nation's highest court could strike down the measure under the administration's theory of courts' limited power.
'Does every single person who is affected by this EO have to bring their own suit?' Kagan asked. 'How long does it take?'
Sauer tried to answer, but several of Kagan's colleagues, along with the justice, jumped in to say they didn't hear a clear way the court could swiftly ensure the government could not take unconstitutional action. Roberts tried to help by jumping in to note the high court has moved fast in the past, concluding the TikTok case in one month.
'General Sauer, are you really going to answer Kagan by saying there is no way to do this expeditiously?' Coney Barrett asks Sauer.
She pressed Sauer to say whether a class-action lawsuit could be another way for judges to issue a court order that could affect more people. He said the administration would likely push back on efforts of people to bind together for a class-action lawsuit, but that it would be another way for cases to move forward.
Justice Alito pointed out that multiple states have also sued over the birthright citizenship order and won broader victories. The Trump administration is also arguing that states shouldn't have been able to do that, but Sauer sticks to his point about the nationwide injunctions, saying they yield 'all these sort of pathologies.'
Sotomayor returned how Trump's order could affect people, saying it for some babies it could 'render them stateless.'
Justices pepper Trump's Solicitor General with questions in oral arguments
Arguing first is D. John Sauer, the solicitor general and the government's top attorney before the Supreme Court. Sauer also served as a personal lawyer for Trump as he fought election interference charges filed in 2023. Before that, Sauer served as Missouri's solicitor general and a clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Sauer began by taking aim at decisions from lower courts that apply nationwide. He argued that they go beyond the courts' authority and allow people who want to file lawsuits to go 'judge shopping' for those they expect to agree. The decisions are often rushed, he said.
'This is a bipartisan problem that has now spanned the last five presidential administration,' he said.
Nationwide injunctions have become especially frustrating for the Trump administration, as opponents of the president's policies file hundreds of lawsuits challenging his flurry of executive orders.
After a series of questions from Justices Brown Jackson and Coney Barrett about the possible implications of nationwide court orders more generally, Justice Gorsuch raised another question about birthright citizenship in particular: 'What do you say to the suggestion in this case those patchwork problems for the government as well as for the plaintiffs justify broader relief?'
Sauer responded that it is a problem for the executive branch to deal with.
The court issued an opinion unrelated to birthright citizenship
The Supreme Court has revived a civil rights lawsuit against a Texas police officer who fatally shot a man during a traffic stop over unpaid tolls. The justices Thursday ordered the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take a new look at the case of Ashtian Barnes, who died in his rental car in 2016 on the shoulder of the Sam Houston Tollway. Barnes was shot by Officer Roberto Felix Jr., who jumped on the sill of the driver's door of Barnes' car as it began to pull away from the stop. Felix's lawyers say he fired twice in two seconds because he 'reasonably feared for his life.'
Trump presses for restrictions ahead of arguments
President Donald Trump is weighing in ahead of arguments in the birthright citizenship case today.
Trump says in an online post that granting citizenship to people born here, long seen as a constitutional promise, makes the country look 'STUPID' and like 'SUCKERS.' He incorrectly asserted the U.S. is the only country in the world with birthright citizenship. While not every country grants it, about 30 other countries do, including Canada.
His executive order at the heart of today's case aims to end birthright citizenship for children born to people in the U.S. illegally, something many legal scholars say would require amending the Constitution.
Three lawyers will present arguments to the court
Solicitor General D. John Sauer is representing the Trump administration in urging the court to allow Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship to take effect in at least 27 states. New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum is arguing on behalf of the states that say they'll lose millions of dollars in health and other benefits available to U.S. children and also have to overhaul identification systems since birth certificates will no longer serve as proof of citizenship. Kelsi Corkran is representing pregnant women and immigrant rights groups that say chaos will result if Trump's order takes effect anywhere.
The justices will take the bench at 10 o'clock Eastern time, but the livestream won't begin immediately. The court will issue at least one opinion before hearing arguments, so it could be 10 minutes before the Chief Justice John Roberts invites Sauer to begin.
The livestream will be available on the court's website, www.supremecourt.gov, or C-SPAN. C-SPAN asked Roberts to allow cameras to carry the case live, but he did not respond to the request, C-SPAN said. The Supreme Court has never allowed cameras in the courtroom.
A decision should come relatively soon. The Supreme Court typically rules in all its argued cases by the end of June and this one shouldn't be any different. If anything, an order from the court might come quickly because the legal issue before the justices is not whether Trump's birthright citizenship restrictions are constitutional, but whether to grant the administration's emergency appeals to narrow lower court orders against it while lawsuits proceed.