What It Would Look Like if the Trump Admin Got Its Way in the Birthright Citizenship Case

[justaprogressive]

Imagine you are pregnant. You live in Texas and will be giving birth this summer. Meanwhile, your friend is also pregnant and is scheduled to have her baby the very same day as you—except she lives in Maryland. Both of you are either undocumented or on a temporary visa, but because you live in Texas your newborn may be ineligible to receive U.S. citizenship, rendering them stateless. Over in Maryland, your friend’s baby will become a U.S. citizen, benefiting from social services only offered to people with a Social Security number.

You’re probably wondering: How is that fair?

It’s a scenario that the Supreme Court is grappling with as it deliberates on Trump v. CASA, a case that will determine the lawfulness of the three nationwide injunctions currently preventing President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order from taking effect. Last week, the federal government argued it wants to limit those injunctions to only the plaintiffs suing—22 states and Washington, D.C., two immigrant rights groups, and four pregnant women—because it believes lower courts should not have universal authority to dictate the executive branch’s policy.

If the justices rule in favor of Trump, it could create a world in which babies born to undocumented immigrants (and those here on temporary visas) in nearly half of U.S. states would not receive birthright citizenship. That’s despite many of the justices suggesting that Trump’s executive order, on its merits, is most likely unconstitutional. But that’s not the issue they’ve tasked themselves with solving for now; instead, they accepted the Trump administration’s request to exclusively consider the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued against the policy.

I talked to Elora Mukherjee, clinical law professor at Columbia University and director of the school’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, to understand how the president’s executive order would work in practice, if the justices rule that the current nationwide injunctions cannot stand and must be limited to the plaintiffs.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-immigration.html