Supreme Court to Review Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will evaluate the legality of President Donald Trump’s directive regarding birthright citizenship. This order states that children born in the U.S. to parents who are undocumented or only temporarily present are not considered U.S. citizens.
The justices will listen to Trump’s appeal against previous lower court rulings. Notably, these citizenship restrictions aren’t currently enforced anywhere across the nation.
The case is set to be argued in the spring, with a final decision anticipated by early summer.
Trump’s birthright citizenship order, signed on January 20—his second term’s first day—forms part of a wider immigration enforcement strategy by the Republican government. This initiative is accompanied by increased immigration action in various cities and an unusual invocation of an 18th-century law called the Foreign Enemies Act.
The administration is currently dealing with several legal challenges, and the Supreme Court has shown mixed reactions through its emergency orders. For instance, the justices paused the application of the Alien Enemy Act, which had allowed for the expedited deportation of supposed Venezuelan gang members without court proceedings. However, they also reinstated broad suspensions in the Los Angeles area after lower courts deemed it discriminatory to suspend individuals based solely on race, language, or residence.
Additionally, the justices are contemplating an emergency appeal from the administration asking for authorization to send the National Guard to Chicago to clamp down on immigration, a plan currently blocked by a lower court.
This ruling on birthright citizenship represents the first legal challenge to one of Trump’s immigration policies. If upheld, it could reshape over a century of interpretation of the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, which generally confers citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, except for the children of foreign diplomats and occupiers.
Despite a ruling late June that limited judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions, various lower courts have continued to declare multiple executive actions unconstitutional or potentially unconstitutional. Interestingly, while the Supreme Court has not ruled out other court decisions with potentially national consequences, such as class-action suits, it hasn’t definitively addressed the citizenship order’s constitutionality yet.
Every lower court that evaluated this matter has determined that Trump’s order likely violates the 14th Amendment, which was established to secure civil rights for free African Americans, including former slaves. This long-standing principle of birthright citizenship guarantees that anyone born within the U.S. becomes a citizen, including those born to undocumented parents.
The case under review originates from New Hampshire and follows a federal judge’s decision in July, which blocked the citizenship order in response to a class-action lawsuit involving affected children. The administration had urged for a ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the situation.
In July, the court dismissed a lawsuit from a coalition of Democratic-led states that sought a nationwide injunction to address concerns over inconsistent birthright citizenship recognition across states.
The administration contends that noncitizen children do not qualify for citizenship since they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. D. John Sauer, the administration’s leading lawyer for the Supreme Court, argued that the Citizenship Clause was designed to provide citizenship for newly freed slaves and their offspring, not for children of undocumented immigrants.
This position is supported by 24 Republican-led states and several prominent Republicans, including Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
