WASHINGTON >> Lawyers for President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift a nationwide pause imposed on the president’s order ending birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants without legal status.

The move represents the first time the legal wrangling over the president’s order to end birthright citizenship has reached the Supreme Court. If Trump succeeds, the policy could go into effect in some parts of the country.

Three federal courts, in Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington state, had issued directives temporarily pausing the order, which was signed by Trump on his first day in office and declared that the government would no longer consider the U.S.-born children of people in the country illegally as citizens.

The Trump administration’s emergency applications are aimed at pushing back on nationwide injunctions, judicial orders that can block a policy or action from being enforced throughout the entire country, rather than just on those parties involved in the litigation. The tool has been used by both Democratic and Republican administrations, and a debate over such injunctions has simmered for years.

The three emergency applications list 22 states and the District of Columbia as parties to the lawsuits.

A series of Trump’s initial policy moves have been blocked nationally by judges who have imposed similar broad injunctions while suits challenging their legality are considered.