WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on May 15 wrestled with whether to let President Donald Trump broadly enforce his changes to birthright citizenship as courts consider whether those changes are constitutional.
The justices seemed to pose tougher questions to the Trump administration’s lawyers than to lawyers for the states and immigrants’ rights advocates challenging Trump’s executive order.
But they also probed whether there’s an alternative to the national injunctions that district courts have issued, which put the order on hold while it’s being litigated.
Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the court can quickly take up the underlying issue of whether Trump’s order banning birthright citizenship is constitutional.
“Is there any reason, in this case, we would not be able to act expeditiously?” he asked Solicitor General John Sauer.
