The 14th Amendment has long been interpreted to guarantee the right of citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil. Three district courts concluded Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order taking away that right was likely unlawful and issued universal preliminary injunctions barring the order from taking effect.

In a 6-3 vote Friday, the high court’s conservative majority found the lower court judges overstepped. 

“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” reads the majority opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. 

The court ruled that Trump’s birthright order would not go into effect for 30 days. During that time, the possibility exists that the plaintiffs could successfully reargue for another nationwide injunction under the new rules set by the Supreme Court. But if they fail, birthright citizenship may no longer be automatic in the 28 states that have not challenged the president’s directive.

Trump, appearing in the White House briefing room Friday, said “the Supreme Court has delivered , the separation of powers and the rule of law.” 

The decision does not address the constitutionality of Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship, considered settled  law for nearly 160 years. But it comes at a time when the president is aggressively trying to extend his powers through a barrage of executive orders that now can no longer be as forcefully blocked across the country by a single federal judge who deems them unlawful or unconstitutional. Judges have issued since Trump took office for a second term in January, the Associated Press reported.

It also coincides with the administration’s far-reaching and controversial immigration enforcement campaign that has targeted and swept up those without secure legal status, including students. Educators and advocates are particularly concerned about the fate of young children. 

“The timing could not be worse, with increased ICE activity across the country,” said Adam Strom, executive director of Re-Imagining Migration. “As educators, this makes our jobs even harder. When you fear that your citizenship can be taken away, it’s very hard to learn.”

The ruling came just days after the Supreme Court decided on Monday to to countries other than those in which they were born. Immigrant advocates say both decisions run counter to core American values. 

David C. Baluarte, CUNY School of Law professor and senior associate dean for academic affairs, said if Trump is able to implement his birthright order, some children born in the United States to undocumented parents or those temporarily in the U.S. would be in great jeopardy.

“That means they will be an undocumented immigrant here, and everywhere, in perpetuity — or unless they can convince some country to give them citizenship,” Baluarte said.

Walter Olson, senior fellow at the right-of-center Cato Institute, said now is a “particularly bad” time for the high court to weaken a critical means to check the power of a “scofflaw administration.” 

Olson said the president, through this particular directive, signaled from the outset of his second term that he was seeking to be “very radical” in his authority. He said the birthright issue was a remarkable choice because it was not at all up for debate. 

“The law was very clear on behalf of birthright citizenship,” Olson said. “So, the executive order deserved the immediate unpopularity and outrage that came with it. It’s settled law.” 

reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Trump argued it “has always excluded” people born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” including those whose mother was unlawfully present in the country and whose father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth. 

This same restriction applies to those children born to mothers whose presence in the U.S.  is lawful but temporary, including those visiting under the Visa Waiver Program or on a student, work or tourist visa — if the father is also not a citizen or lawful permanent resident, Trump contends.

Margo Schlanger, law professor and director of the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse at the University of Michigan Law School, said the Supreme Court left open three pathways through which the lower courts can block nationwide policies by the Trump administration they believe to be unlawful.

The first is through a lawsuit filed against the government by a state. The second involves a nationwide class action lawsuit, which can be cumbersome, complicated and time consuming: It’s often difficult to prove any group of people have enough in common to constitute a class. The third would allow a lower court to “set aside” a rule it deems unlawful under the . 

Schlanger notes that every one of the three remaining pathways has “major” procedural obstacles. She predicts that the state plaintiffs will go back to their district courts and argue that even under these new Supreme Court rules, they still have grounds for a nationwide injunction because that is the only way to guarantee complete relief from an unlawful executive order. 

At the same time, she said, in one or more of the other cases, private plaintiffs might try to expand to a class. Both or either type of case could land the issue back before the Supreme Court — not for procedural arguments, but to decide the issue on its merits. 

“I don’t expect the Trump administration would win at that point,” Schlanger said. “What they were doing is using this case as an opportunity to restrict the authority of the non-Supreme Court federal courts.” 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Friday’s decision leaves Americans with one less tool to fight an “out-of-control” executive branch. 

“Today, the justices have kneecapped the lower courts’ ability to protect Americans from Trump’s most pernicious policy abuses, making it far more difficult to resolve key questions by requiring additional litigation,” she said in a statement. “People need courts to protect them from this or any other administration wreaking havoc on our nation’s laws and Americans’ lives.”

A federal judge in Washington state today President Donald J. Trump’s three-day-old executive order to end birthright citizenship. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, called the order .” He agreed with the four state plaintiffs that it would cause irreparable harm to those denied their right to citizenship, subjected to the risk of deportation and family separation and deprived of federally funded medical care and public benefits that “prevent child poverty and promote child health,” also impacting their education. A separate federal lawsuit is pending in Massachusetts.

— plus San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — and several civil rights groups are suing to block President Donald J. Trump’s move to undo birthright citizenship through executive order, a constitutional challenge education leaders say could transform public schools. 

Trump, who rode a to a second term, argues that to any child whose mother is unlawfully present in the United States or lawfully present on a temporary basis — such as foreign students — and whose father is neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident. 

The move garnered immediate backlash: Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. It states that “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.” 

“If you lose the protections of birthright citizenship and is overturned or somehow ignored, then I think a lot of families would withdraw their children from school out of fear of deportation,” said immigration advocate and policy expert Timothy Boals, referring to the 1982 Supreme Court case which forbids schools from denying enrollment based on a child’s or their parents’ immigration status. 

Conservative forces aligned with the Trump administration have been strategizing an end to Plyler . That potential threat is now being amplified with the affront on birthright citizenship and Tuesday’s announcement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are now free to , churches and other once-protected areas. The president has already pledged and a return to .

“What that means is more children are denied an education and that’s not good for our society if they end up staying,” said Boals, “and it’s certainly not good for the students wherever they end up going.”

Speaking specifically about the ICE enforcement change, Laura Gardner, who founded Immigrant Connections, a consulting group that works with educators, said the policy will create “intense fear” and could negatively impact student attendance and family engagement. It will also be difficult for teachers, whom she said can’t do their job when children aren’t in school. 

“As educators, we always remind students and families that schools are a safe space and now we can’t really guarantee that,” she told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ. “Ultimately, all this is going to do is hurt innocent children.”

About lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. About 250,000 babies were born to unauthorized immigrant parents in the United States in 2016, the latest year for which information is available, according to . This represents a 36% decrease from a peak of about 390,000 in 2007.

The president also seeks to prohibit government agencies from issuing documents recognizing an infant’s citizenship if born under the circumstances he outlined — or from accepting documents issued by state, local or other authorities acknowledging their citizenship. 

The controversial order could go into effect Feb. 19, leaving children born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents, from that date on, without any legal status. “They will all be deportable and many will be stateless,” according to . 

It said Trump has no right to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment, “Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth.”

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups fighting the move, called it a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values.

“Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is,” he said. “This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans.”

Romero’s remarks harken back to one of the Supreme Court’s most reviled rulings: . In that 1857 case, the court ruled that enslaved people, including Dred Scott, were not citizens of the United States and, as a result, could not expect any protection from the federal government or courts, according to the . 

The ruling, which pushed the nation toward civil war, was essentially undone by the 13th and 14th amendments. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James lambasted Trump for trying to reverse what has been a hallmark of the nation for more than 150 years.

“This executive order is nothing but an attempt to sow division and fear, but we are prepared to fight back with the full force of the law to uphold the integrity of our Constitution,” she said. “As Attorney General, I will always protect the legal rights of immigrants and their families and communities.”

If Trump’s order is implemented, the U.S. would join other nations that do not allow birthright citizenship — or greatly restrict such protections — including and Australia. 

As of 2022, reported that unauthorized immigrants represented 3.3% of the total U.S. population and 23% of the foreign-born population: Immigrants as a whole comprised 14.3% of the nation’s population that year, below the record high of 14.8% reached in 1890.

At an inaugural prayer service Tuesday, an Episcopal bishop made to reconsider his views on immigrants and their kids. 

“… they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors,” the Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde said. “… I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away …”

The next day Trumpand described Edgar Budde as a “so-called Bishop” and a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” who was not compelling or smart.