Supreme Court agrees to decide constitutionality of Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship
Washington- The Supreme Court said Friday it will decide the legality of President Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenshipwhich automatically grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States
Published at the start of his second term, this plan is the first from Mr. Trump’s immigration program that the Supreme Court will evaluate on the legal merits. The justices have been asked to intervene in several challenges to Mr. Trump’s immigration policies, but they have done so in the early stages of the cases and through requests for emergency aid.
No lower court facing legal challenges to the birthright citizenship order has adopted the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. Yet the Justice Department argued those decisions were wrong, saying the Constitution does not grant citizenship to the children of “temporary visitors or illegal aliens.”
Section 1 of the 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. »
Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs in the case, said: “No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship. »
“For more than 150 years, the law and our national tradition have held that everyone born on American soil is a natural-born citizen. Federal courts have unanimously ruled that President Trump’s executive order is contrary to the Constitution, an 1898 Supreme Court decision, and a law enacted by Congress,” Wang said in a statement. “We look forward to resolving this issue once and for all before the Supreme Court this legislature.”
Mr. Trump issued its decree on birthright citizenship on his first day back at the White House. Under the plan, children born in the United States to parents residing illegally or temporarily in the country are not recognized as American citizens.
The president’s directive sought to overturn more than a century of agreement that the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil, with exceptions for children born to diplomats and foreign military forces. The Supreme Court addressed the issue 127 years ago, ruling in 1898 that the Citizenship Clause ties U.S. citizenship to place of birth.
Mr. Trump’s executive order is a pillar of his immigration agenda, but it has not yet taken effect. The policy faced numerous legal challenges soon after its enactment, and lower courts uniformly blocked its implementation. Then the Supreme Court agreed to intervene in the early stages of three different cases, but did not examine the underlying legality of Mr. Trump’s proposal.
Instead, the question before the justices was the scope of relief granted by lower courts hearing birthright citizenship cases, which had issued nationwide injunctions blocking the administration from enforcing the policy. The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, limited the capacity of district court judges to issue these universal orders, but said plaintiffs could seek broad relief through class actions. It also left open the possibility for states to obtain aid on a national scale.
On the heels of that ruling, two babies subject to Mr. Trump’s order and their parents, along with a pregnant woman, filed a lawsuit challenging the birthright citizenship order on behalf of a putative class nationwide. A federal district court in New Hampshire certified as provisional class all babies who would be denied birthright citizenship by the president’s plan and found that the order likely violated the Constitution.
The district court barred the Trump administration from enforcing the plan on all affected individuals.
The Supreme Court took up the case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled.
She did not pursue another appeal involving four states, Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which had been brought to the high court in a preliminary position. In July, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that Mr. Trump’s executive order was invalid because it contradicted the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to all those born in the United States
The 9th Circuit split 2-1 to uphold a nationwide injunction that was issued by a district court in February, finding it necessary to provide full relief to the states.
The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to take up both cases and make a final decision on whether Mr. Trump’s executive order is constitutionally sound. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said it was a “misguided view” that birth on American soil confers citizenship, and said the understanding had “destructive consequences.”
But the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs in the New Hampshire case, argued that the Trump administration was in effect asking the Supreme Court to “rewrite” the Citizenship Clause and end more than a century of the nation’s “everyday practice.”
Proceedings in the case are expected to take place next year, with a decision likely by late June or early July.
