REUTERS

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 hardline 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.

The department asked the Supreme Court to take up and resolve the case in its new term, which begins on October 6.

Trump’s executive order directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also called a “green card” holder.

His action drew a series of lawsuits arguing among other things that the order violates a right enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.

After multiple lower courts halted the order as unconstitutional, the administration took the disputes to the Supreme Court in an effort to challenge the power of federal judges to issue so-called “universal” injunctions preventing presidential policies from applying against anyone, anywhere.

That action led the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to issue a landmark ruling in June blunting the power of judges. But that ruling left open the possibility for courts to grant broad relief to states or to individual plaintiffs through class action lawsuits.

Two challenges to Trump’s order are at issue in Friday’s appeals. One was filed by the state of Washington and three other states, and the other by a group of individuals who sued in federal court in New Hampshire.