WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to uphold President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, the long-held principle that children born on American soil are automatically citizens.

Trump issued the order on his first day in office, but it has been blocked by the courts ever since.

In a pair of petitions, government lawyers argued that the Constitution’s promise of citizenship was conferred on “freed slaves and their children, not on the children of aliens temporarily visiting the United States or of illegal aliens.”

The common understanding of the 14th Amendment for more than a century, upheld by the Supreme Court, has guaranteed citizenship to children born in the United States. But D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, argue

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