What to know about the Supreme Court arguments in the birthright citizenship case

A conference Monday at the U S Supreme Court may decide whether San Diego s Luke Wilson can make his unlawful search argument Image via supremecourt gov The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Thursday in its first matter stemming from the blitz of actions that have marked the start of President Donald Trump s second term Before the court are the Trump administration s exigency appeals of lower court orders putting nationwide holds on the Republican president s push to deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States without proper documentation Birthright citizenship is among several issues multiple related to immigration that the administration has appealed the court to address on an exigency basis after lower courts acted to slow the president s agenda The justices are also considering the administration s pleas to end humanitarian parole for more than people from Cuba Haiti Nicaragua and Venezuela and to strip other temporary legal protections from another Venezuelans The administration remains locked in legal battles over its efforts to swiftly deport people accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act In Thursday s arguments the justices will be weighing whether judges have the authority to issue what are called nationwide or universal injunctions The Trump administration like the Biden administration before it has complained that judges are overreaching by issuing orders that apply to everyone instead of just the parties before the court Yet in discussing the limits of a judge s power the court almost certainly will have to take up the change to citizenship that Trump wants to make which would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than years What is birthright citizenship The first sentence of the th Amendment to the Constitution reads 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 The Citizenship Clause ratified in after the Civil War was included to ensure that formerly enslaved people would be citizens It effectively overturned the notorious Dred Scott decision in which the Supreme Court held that Black people no matter their status were not citizens Since at least and the Supreme Court matter of Wong Kim Ark the provision has been widely interpreted to make citizens of everyone born on U S soil except for the children of diplomats who have allegiance to another ruling body enemies present in the U S during hostile occupation and until a federal law changed things in sovereign Native American tribes Trump signed the birthright citizenship executive order on the first day of his second term Trump s executive order would deny citizenship to children if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident Those categories include people who are in the country without documentation or temporarily because the administration contends they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States Almost right now states immigrants and rights groups sued to block the executive order accusing the Republican administration of trying to unsettle the understanding of birthright citizenship Every court to consider the issue has sided with the challengers The court will not be making a final ruling on birthright citizenship The administration is asking for the court orders to be reined in not overturned entirely and spends little time defending the executive order The Justice Department argues that there has been an explosion in the number of nationwide injunctions issued since Trump retook the White House The far-reaching court orders violate the law as well as long-standing views on a judge s authority Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration Courts typically deal only with the parties before them Even class actions reach only the people who are part of a class certified by a judge though those can affect millions of people Sauer wrote Nationwide injunctions by contrast have no limits and can even include parties who oppose what the court orders are designed to protect he wrote As an example Sauer pointed to Republican-led states that favor the administration s position but are subject to the nationwide injunctions But the justices may well ask about Trump s executive order and perhaps even tip their hand Lawyers for the states and immigrants argue that this is an odd issue for the court to use to limit judges authority because courts have uniformly determined that Trump s order likely violates the Constitution Limiting the number of people who are protected by the rulings would create a confusing patchwork of rules in which new restrictions on citizenship could temporarily take effect in states That means a child born in a state that is challenging Trump s order would be a citizen but a child born at the same time elsewhere would not the lawyers revealed Arguments over emergency appeals are rare The Supreme Court almost unfailingly takes up the underlying substance of a dispute not an exigency appeal of court orders issued early in a legal affair The main argument against the court deciding too much on the urgency or shadow docket is that the justices are intervening too early in the process sometimes before lower courts have had much to say or the legal arguments are fully developed Last year the justices heard arguments in emergency appeals then blocked the Environmental Protection Agency s air pollution-fighting good neighbor plan which aimed to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing garbage Two years earlier the court delivered a split decision that allowed rules requiring COVID- vaccines for strength care workers but not for employees of large companies