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The Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a victory in his effort to revoke birthright citizenship, in a decision that blocks lower US courts from halting nationwide policies.
The justices did not rule on the merits of birthright citizenship itself, under which children born in the country to unauthorised immigrants are among those granted US nationality.
In a 6-3 decision, the top court on Friday granted the administration’s request to limit injunctions handed down by lower courts.
Trump issued his executive order to deny citizenship in such cases on January 20, the day he returned to office.
However, Friday’s ruling limited lower courts’ ability to make rulings that had an impact well beyond the parties in a case. The executive order will not go into effect for 30 days, allowing lower courts to “determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate,” according to the opinion authored by conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Trump and other top officials have harshly criticised district court judges, who the administration claims have acted well beyond their authority by freezing executive orders on everything from trade to deportations.
“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” the majority opinion said.
Under the current interpretation of the US constitution, American law considers people born in the US to be citizens regardless of whether their parents were in the country illegally.
But Trump has argued the Fourteenth Amendment did not “extend citizenship universally to everyone born” in the US.
This is a developing story
