Subject: Re: Birthright citizenship
A more interesting question is, "If the appeal is an effective delay tactic, then why would Trump be behind it?

It seems to me that Trump would be adverse to delays. He wants to get his EO before SCOTUS as soon as possible.

The Administration has at least two competing objectives:

1) They want SCOTUS to rule on the substance of their birthright citizenship argument as quickly as possibly; and
2) They want to prevail in that ruling.

Since this is just the temporary injunction, the trial court hasn't ruled on the merits of the claim yet. They've just ruled that the plaintiffs are likely enough to succeed that keeping the status quo from before the EO in place during the trial is appropriate. The appeal is therefore challenging whether the temporary injunction was properly granted, not the merits of whether the EO is itself lawful.

Appealing the temporary injunction delays reaching the merits at the trial court, which delays bringing it up on appeal. However, getting the injunction in front of the SCOTUS gives the justices a chance to signal whether any of them are receptive to the substantive argument - or even to overturn the injunction, which would let the EO go into place immediately and send a strong signal to the lower courts that SCOTUS is on board with the claim.

There are two other possible - more negative - reasons they might be doing this:

3) Trump moved faster than his DOJ/legal team could be confirmed and up and running, so this might simply be a mistake; or
4) The Administration isn't confident they'll win on the merits, so wants to have the issue unresolved until later in Trump's term.

On the former, Trump still indulges in his desire to move as quickly as possible and not accede to the fact that there are other branches and existing statutes that make moving quickly....inadvisable. This hampered some of his efforts during his first term, with his Administration losing cases that they easily could have won if they had taken their time in rulemaking and built a better record. Here, Trump's running even faster than his legal team can fully get staffed up and on board - and it may be that they just have had to "wing it" when making these decisions, without benefit of a well thought out legal strategy.

The latter is inconsistent with the former - it assumes that someone has thought about strategy - but is based on the idea that the EO on birthright citizenship has value to the Administration even while enjoined. It's a powerful signal to their base about the Administration's beliefs and priorities. So if the likely ending is the Court following Yick Wo, they're in no hurry to get there.