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Protesters at the Supreme Court. | Credit: Kent Nishimura \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
What happened<\/p>\n
In a remarkable break with centuries of tradition, President Trump personally attended Supreme Court arguments this week, listening in as his administration asked the justices to overturn birthright citizenship. During the questioning in Trump v. Barbara, Chief Justice John Roberts and most other justices cast doubt on the constitutionality of an executive order Trump issued in his first week in office, which requires proof of parental citizenship or permanent residency for a newborn to become a U.S. citizen. If upheld, the order could deny citizenship to some 250,000 babies a year.<\/p>\n
Solicitor General John Sauer said the new trend of \u201cbirth tourism\u201d required new restrictions, but the justices pushed back. \u201cIt\u2019s a new world. It\u2019s the same Constitution,\u201d Roberts said, adding, \u201cThe examples you give to support strike me as very quirky.\u201d Most justices were skeptical of Sauer\u2019s arguments. But Justice Samuel Alito said an 1898 precedent\u2014the Wong Kim Ark case, which concerned the U.S.-born son of Chinese immigrants\u2014was not the last word on interpretations of the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship. We\u2019re dealing with \u201csomething that was basically unknown at the time,\u201d said Alito: \u201cillegal immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The landmark hearing occurred days after the court considered arguments for a separate Trump priority: limiting mail-in balloting<\/a>. In Watson v. RNC, the Republican National Committee argued that a 2020 Mississippi law allowing the counting of votes postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days later violates the federal law designating a single day for voting. The court\u2019s conservative majority appeared skeptical of the Mississippi law and poised to strike it down, although the three liberal justices expressed fears that such a move could invalidate all early voting and override states\u2019 constitutional powers to organize elections. Decisions on both cases are expected by July.<\/p>\n What the columnists said<\/p>\n For well over a century, said Maureen Groppe in USA Today, presidents, justices, and lawmakers agreed that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship \u201cto nearly everyone.\u201d The text is clear: \u201cAll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.\u201d The exceptions arise from the \u201cjurisdiction\u201d clause, which has always been read to exclude only those children born to diplomats or to invading soldiers. But on the very first day of his second term, Trump effectively gave himself the power<\/a> to \u201credefine who is an American\u201d by issuing an executive order aimed at the children of undocumented immigrants. Every lower court that has reviewed that order has ruled against it. Still, some of the conservative Supreme Court justices seemed to take the administration\u2019s arguments seriously.<\/p>\n The outcome could hinge on what \u201cdomiciled\u201d means, said Adam Liptak and Ann E. Marimow in The New York Times. In the Wong Kim Ark case, Wong\u2019s parents were legal U.S. residents domiciled in California. Sauer argued that illegal immigrants and temporary visitors are not \u201cdomiciled\u201d here, and therefore their babies are not citizens\u2014\u201cmeaning the court could side with him and not overturn the precedent.\u201d Trump\u2019s presence \u201cadded to the drama\u201d of an \u201cemotionally charged\u201d session, said Abbie VanSickle, also in the Times. Conservative justices asked tough questions of Cecillia Wang, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who is herself the recipient of birthright citizenship: Her Taiwanese parents were in the U.S. on student visas when she was born.<\/p>\n If the court were to find for the administration, the damage would \u201cripple far beyond undocumented immigrants,\u201d said Scott Titshaw and Stephen Yale-Loehr in The Hill. Junking birthright citizenship would leave millions of children without legal status<\/a>, many of them of Latino or Asian heritage. And because the executive order defines parents as \u201cimmediate biological progenitors,\u201d it could deny citizenship to \u201cchildren of same-sex couples\u201d and those relying on surrogates. \u201cThe stakes could not be higher.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet \u201cTrump\u2019s relationship with the Supreme Court has never been more toxic,\u201d said James Romoser in The Wall Street Journal. Since the court ruled against his tariffs in February, \u201che has repeatedly disparaged the patriotism and loyalty of the justices who ruled against him.\u201d Though birthright citizenship may be \u201ca closer case than expected,\u201d the administration \u201cappears on shaky ground.\u201d Trump seemed to realize that in the courtroom. After he left, he posted\u2014inaccurately\u2014on Truth Social<\/a>: \u201cWe are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow \u2018Birthright\u2019 Citizenship!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Protesters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[537,3197,3198,3365,535,3582,5385,64,11101,536,7032],"class_list":{"0":"post-13150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-john-roberts","8":"tag-birthright-citizenship","9":"tag-chief-justice-john-roberts","10":"tag-citizenship","11":"tag-executive-order","12":"tag-john-roberts","13":"tag-john-sauer","14":"tag-justice-samuel-alito","15":"tag-president-trump","16":"tag-rnc","17":"tag-supreme-court","18":"tag-wong-kim-ark"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116359259914742797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}