'Headwinds' against Trump in crucial SCOTUS case: ACLU legal director

After returning to the White House on January 20, President Donald Trump wasted no time issuing an executive order banning birthright citizenship. But many legal scholars are saying that the order is blatantly unconstitutional, as birthright citizenship is protected by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment — which was ratified back in 1868.

Birthright citizenship, Trump's critics say, has been the law of the land for 157 years — and Trump lacks the authority to ban it.

Trump's executive order is being aggressively challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others. And this Thursday, May 15, the U.S. Supreme Court will address the right of lower federal courts to issue injunctions blocking the order.

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Cecillia Wang, the ACLU's national legal director, discussed the case during a May 14 interview with MSNBC's Ana Cabrera.

The MSNBC host noted that the High Court is "not actually hearing arguments on the merits here about whether President Trump can end birthright citizenship through this executive order" but "instead," on "the power of the lower court" to "issue nationwide injunctions" against Trump's order.

Wang told Cabrera, "This is an issue that's been brewing in a number of cases that have been brought against the U.S. government across various administrations. But what's interesting about this particular case, as it's teed up for argument in the Supreme Court tomorrow, is that the Trump Administration is complaining, essentially, that three different federal appeals courts have permitted lower court injunctions to go into place, basically blocking the president's unconstitutional and illegal birthright citizenship order. And Trump is saying, in the Supreme Court: I'm complaining here that the federal judiciary is enjoining me left and right, and the lower courts of the United States are blocking my policies from going into effect."

Wang continued, "And he calls out, in his brief, that there are more court injunctions against his administration than other administrations. Well, he skips over the obvious fact that the reason for that is that the Trump Administration is implementing so many unconstitutional and blatantly illegal policies."

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The case being addressed on May 15, according to Wang, underscores the need for "uniformity in issues of nationality and immigration."

Wang told Cabrera, "So, I think that the Court is going to be looking at a particular context for issues of so-called universal injunctions, where the headwinds are really against the U.S. government here — against the executive branch…. So the trump Administration is trying to, again, attack the federal judiciary and the notion of checks and balances against the unconstitutional use of executive power here to try to override the Constitution — and in fact, the Reconstruction Constitution — through executive fiat, through executive order. But if you look at this on a case-by-case basis…. I think that we now have orders that 22 states have won, blocking the president's executive order, blatantly unconstitutional, from going into effect.

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Watch the full video below or at this link.