An abortion rights activist flies an upside down US flag, the international sign of distress, outside of the US Supreme Court during a protest in Washington, DC, on June 26, 2022, two days after the US Supreme Court scrapped half-century constitutional protections for the procedure. Elected leaders across the US political divide rallied on June 26 for a long fight ahead on abortion -- state by state and in Congress -- with total bans in force or expected soon in half of the vast country. (Photo by Samuel Corum / AFP) (Photo by SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images)

Four federal judges so far have ruled that President Donald J. Trump’s executive order denying citizenship to certain children born in the United States is unconstitutional. Not one judge has sided with him.

To put a fine point on this, “unconstitutional” isn’t legalese for some abstract concept: It means illegal, as in against the law of all the land.

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Quite properly, three of those judges issued nationwide injunctions barring the enforcement of Mr. Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship throughout the U.S.

The administration has gone to court over this in a gambit that is almost as offensive to the Constitution as the president’s usurpation of it. The government isn’t defending the substance of the order; it’s challenging the concept of nationwide injunctions, saying that a court in one federal district shouldn’t be able to constrain it — in this case, stop it from breaking the law — in any other district. Mr. Trump’s legal team........

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