President Donald Trump's administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to review the legality of his bid to limit birthright citizenship in the United States, teeing up a major test of one of his most contentious policies that could alter how the U.S. Constitution has long been understood on the subject.
The Justice Department filed two appeals of lower court rulings that blocked Trump's executive order, which the Republican president signed on his first day back in office in January as a key part of his hard-line approach toward immigration.
"The lower court's decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the President and his Administration in a manner that undermines our border security. Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people," the Justice Department wrote in the appeals.
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