Overview

• President Trump’s executive order seeks to restrict birthright citizenship for children of noncitizen parents, challenging long-standing interpretations of the 14th Amendment.
• Federal courts have issued nationwide injunctions blocking the order, which the Trump administration argues should be limited to the specific parties involved in the lawsuits.
• The Supreme Court will focus solely on whether lower courts can issue nationwide injunctions, leaving the broader constitutional question unresolved for now.
• Legal experts warn that narrowing injunctions could create a patchwork of citizenship rules, leading to unequal treatment based on state or jurisdiction.
• Some justices, including Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan, have previously criticized nationwide injunctions as unworkable and prone to forum shopping.