The Department of Justice submitted a sweeping petition to the U.S. Supreme Court late Friday, asking the justices to uphold President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order that would deny birthright citizenship to children born in the United States, if neither parent is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. The filing explicitly challenges a centuries-old constitutional principle.

Lower courts have already blocked the order as unconstitutional, but Trump is betting on the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority to roll back the universal principle, established in 1868 and reaffirmed in the landmark 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, that anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen, with extremely limited exceptions.

“The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children — not to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the petition. “The mistaken view that birth on U.S. territory confers citizenship on anyone subject to the regulatory reach of U.S. law became pervasive, with destructive consequences.”

The government is pressing the court to take the case quickly, claiming urgent national interests.