This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A state's top legal officer is endorsing President Donald Trump's move to obtain a definitive court ruling on "birthright citizenship" in the United States which has been used for generations to give citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of the status of the parents.

Trump has issued an executive order that the practice ignores the Constitution's requirement that they be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

The fight is one of those in which local judges across America have issued nationwide injunctions to halt, and it's at the Supreme Court now.

Now Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Trump's position.

"Courts are empowered by the Constitution to resolve cases and controversies, not to issue sweeping policy proclamations or manage the executive branch," Skrmetti said in a statement. "The American people are the ultimate source of authority and legitimacy for every branch of our government, and every court interpreting the Constitution must therefore adhere to the understanding of the voters who adopted the constitutional language.

"Undermining the sovereignty of the American people through judicial overreach threatens to alienate the people from our constitutional system and thereby cause grievous harm to liberty and public order. Our system depends on checks and balances and each branch of government, at both the federal and state levels, is by design intended to push back against overreach by the other branches. That tension between branches is how we prevent the concentration of undue power in any one place and thus keep Americans free. We look forward to the Supreme Court clarifying these fundamental issues and will continue to litigate strategically to advance the interests of Tennessee."

His announcement explained, "According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, over nine million illegal aliens have entered our country in just the past few years. After crossing the border, many illegal aliens have moved into interior states like Tennessee. This voluminous influx has caused significant strain on resources and poses ongoing economic, health, and public safety challenges for Tennessee and many other states. While lax border security in the past caused much of the problem, it was incentivized and compounded by an expansive interpretation of the Citizenship Clause which is not consistent with numerous sources contemporaneous with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment."

It said, "The Supreme Court of the United States has never squarely addressed the scope of the Citizenship Clause, though government actors have for decades operated under the assumption that the clause guarantees birthright citizenship in almost all circumstances."

A decision that the "jurisdiction" clause limits those who are granted U.S. citizenship would be a huge weapon in the arsenal presidents have to protect the integrity of America's borders, the nation's security, and its citizens.

Tennessee's filing supports Trump's application to stay sweeping preliminary injunctions by multiple district courts in cases addressing birthright citizenship.

It stresses that courts should interpret the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution "in accordance with its original public meaning and should only exercise their judicial power within the confines of specific cases and controversies and consistent with principles of separation of powers."

Trump's Executive Order 14160, "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," is his belief that there should be limits.

The Citizenship Clause states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

It was ratified in 1869 and addressed the infamous Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott that denied citizenship to blacks.

Trump's argument is that the protections of citizenship do not automatically fall on children born of illegal aliens, or those who are in the nation of temporary visas, as there remain questions whether those are "subject to the jurisdiction."

Trump's opponents, both inside and outside the federal judiciary, claim that his understanding of the 14th Amendment would leave thousands of U.S.-born children, some born as part of "birth tourism" whereby illegal aliens break into the United States to have children, giving them to benefits of citizenship, stateless.

The opponents say that would lead to marginalization of "certain communities."

Earlier, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost signed on to a brief supporting Trump's position. He joined 17 other Republican attorneys general to endorse the clarification that children born of illegals inside the United States do not qualify for automatic citizenship.

The states are harmed because such an agenda imposes costs on them.

One analysis explains that even if Trump ultimately does not come out victorious at the Supreme Court, he still could be a winner with a ruling on an issue that already has been causing concern at the Supreme Court.

That's the issue of national injunctions being issued by local judges who are supposed to address controversies inside their own federal judicial districts.

The Department of Justice already has asked the high court to limit those local judges from imposing their own political agendas on the entire nation.

The DOJ explained, "The Executive Branch cannot properly perform its functions if any judge anywhere can enjoin every presidential action everywhere."

States have been told to respond to Trump's requests at the Supreme Court.

It was Justice Neil Gorsuch who once called such nationwide injunctions "cosmic injunctions."

He said the Supreme Court has needed to address the issue for some time.