WASHINGTON – – The US Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear oral arguments in May over President Donald Trump’s bid to broadly enforce his executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, a key pillar of the Republican president’s hardline approach toward immigration.
Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the US illegally has been halted nationwide by three district courts around the country. Appeals courts have declined to disturb those rulings.
Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Trump and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen, which he called “a priceless and profound gift” in the executive order he signed soon after becoming president again in January.
The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, a phrase used in the amendment, and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.
Trump’s order, signed on his first day back in office, directed federal agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident.
In a series of lawsuits, plaintiffs including 22 Democratic state attorneys general, immigrant rights advocates and some expectant mothers argued that Trump’s order violates a right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, that provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.
The 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause states that 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.”
Trump praised the Supreme Court’s decision to review the dispute, telling reporters this is “an easy case to win.” A Justice Department spokesperson said it looked forward to presenting its case before the justices.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who is helping to lead one of the lawsuits challenging Trump’s order, said in a statement, “Birthright citizenship was enshrined in the Constitution in the wake of the Civil War, is backed by a long line of Supreme Court precedent and ensures that something as fundamental as American citizenship cannot be turned on or off at the whims of a single man.”
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority.
The administration contends that the 14th Amendment, long understood to confer citizenship to virtually anyone born in the United States, does not extend to immigrants who are in the country illegally or even to immigrants whose presence is lawful but temporary, such as university students or those on work visas.
The administration’s request to the Supreme Court, however, did not seek the court’s review of the constitutionality of Trump’s order. Instead, it used the legal battle to press the Supreme Court to tackle nationwide, or “universal,” injunctions that federal judges have issued impeding aspects of Trump’s various executive orders to reshape national policy, including birthright citizenship. Universal injunctions can prevent the government from enforcing a policy against anyone, instead of just the individual plaintiffs who sued to challenge the policy. — Agencies
