The United States Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on Thursday concerning President Donald Trump’s executive order that terminates birthright citizenship, following the issuance of nationwide injunctions against the order’s enforcement by three lower federal courts.
Following Trump’s reentry into the White House, the court has implemented temporary measures on various emergency appeals submitted by the administration in response to preliminary rulings from judges that have obstructed certain policies. Nevertheless, the session on Thursday represents the inaugural occasion for the justices to engage in oral arguments concerning a component of Trump’s agenda for his second term, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
In an executive order issued on Inauguration Day, Trump stated that the provision of the 14th Amendment, which grants U.S. citizenship to children born on American soil, is applicable solely to those whose parents are either citizens or permanent residents.
Should it be enacted, Trump’s policy would prevent approximately 255,000 infants born each year in the United States to undocumented immigrants or individuals on temporary visas from obtaining citizenship at birth, as reported by the Migration Policy Institute.
Given that the case remains in the preliminary phases of litigation, the Supreme Court may not deliver a conclusive resolution regarding the citizenship issue. Nevertheless, the presented arguments and the anticipated ruling, expected prior to July, are likely to shed light on the justices’ readiness to evaluate Trump’s unprecedented reading of the Constitution, alongside the increasing number of lower-court rulings that have suspended the administration’s policies across the country.
According to the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, “all individuals born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States.” For more than a hundred years, this provision has been understood to confer citizenship at birth to all persons, with the exception of children of foreign diplomats, as reported by the WSJ.
Supporters of Trump’s directive contend that the original intent of the amendment was to provide citizenship to the offspring of former slaves, and they assert that this provision has been misused by undocumented immigrants who take advantage of it to establish residency in the United States by giving birth to a child on American territory.
The executive order issued by Trump is founded on the premise that illegal immigrants are not considered ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States for the purposes of citizenship, implying that their offspring should not automatically receive citizenship at birth.
The White House maintains that the citizenship clause was intended to counteract the Supreme Court’s notorious 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which determined that black individuals were ineligible for citizenship, while also not granting citizenship to foreigners lacking permanent legal residency.
In 1995, the Justice Department indicated that proposed legislation aimed at abolishing birthright citizenship for children of unauthorized immigrants would necessitate a constitutional amendment. Nevertheless, Trump has frequently contemplated the potential to limit birthright citizenship.
I was consistently informed that a constitutional amendment was necessary. However, that is not the case, as I stated in a 2018 interview. The process is underway and will be accomplished through an executive order.
States governed by Democrats, along with immigrant advocacy organizations, initiated several legal actions to challenge Trump’s directive. Federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington state promptly issued rulings to suspend the order, determining it was likely unconstitutional and prohibiting its enforcement across the nation.
The Justice Department is presently focusing on the extensive range of these injunctions. The administration is advocating for the Supreme Court to limit the power of district judges to grant nationwide injunctions outside their jurisdictions, contending that these injunctions have been misapplied in various instances to obstruct Trump’s agenda.
Nationwide injunctions have been criticized by both political parties, depending on which party holds power, as noted by the WSJ.
The order abolishing birthright citizenship represents merely one aspect of Trump’s extensive initiative aimed at removing and discouraging unauthorized immigrants, a significant portion of which is presently entangled in legal proceedings. Notably, several of these cases have already been briefly presented before the Supreme Court, as further reported by the outlet.
