Washington – The Supreme Court said Friday it will rule on the legality of President Trump's executive order aimed at… terminate citizenship by birthrightwhich automatically grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
The plan, released at the start of his second term, is the first Trump immigration plan that the Supreme Court will evaluate on legal grounds. Judges have been asked to intervene in a range of issues related to Trump's immigration policies, but have done so early in the cases and through emergency requests for relief.
No lower court that has faced legal challenges to the birthright citizenship ruling has accepted the Trump administration's interpretation of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause. However, the Justice Department argues that these decisions are wrong, arguing that 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 in which they reside.”
Cecilia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing plaintiffs in the case, said: “No president can change the fundamental promise of citizenship made by the 14th Amendment.”
“For more than 150 years, it has been the law and our national tradition that everyone born in the United States is a citizen at birth. “The federal courts have unanimously ruled that President Trump's executive order violates the Constitution, the 1898 Supreme Court decision, and the law enacted by Congress,” Wang said in a statement. “We look forward to settling this issue once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
Mr Trump issued a decree on citizenship by birthright on his first day in the White House. Under the plan, children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily would not be recognized as U.S. citizens.
The president's directive was intended to change the more than century-old understanding that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to children born on U.S. soil, excluding children born to diplomats and foreign military forces. The Supreme Court took up the issue 127 years ago, ruling in 1898 that the Nationality Clause tied U.S. citizenship to place of birth.
Mr. Trump's executive order forms the basis of his immigration agenda, but it has not yet taken effect. The policy faced numerous legal challenges shortly after it was issued, and lower courts unanimously blocked its implementation. The Supreme Court then agreed to intervene in the early stages of three different cases, but failed to consider the underlying legality of Trump's proposal.
Instead, the justices faced questions about the scope of relief provided by lower courts handling birthright citizenship cases, which have issued nationwide injunctions blocking the administration from enforcing the policy. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3. limited the capabilities of district court judges issue these blanket orders, but said plaintiffs could seek broad relief through class action lawsuits. It also left open the possibility that states could provide nationwide relief.
Following that ruling, two infants covered by Mr. Trump's order and their parents, as well as a pregnant woman, filed a lawsuit challenging the birthright citizenship order on behalf of the putative nationwide class. A federal district court in New Hampshire placed in a provisional class all infants who would be denied citizenship by birth under the President's plan and found that the order likely violated the Constitution.
The district court blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the plan against anyone affected by it.
The Supreme Court is hearing the case before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides it.
It did not rule on another appeal involving four states: Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which was heard at the preliminary stage in the High Court. In July, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Trump's executive order was invalid because it contradicted the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to everyone born in the United States.
The Ninth Circuit split 2-1 to uphold the nationwide injunction the district court issued in February, finding it necessary to give states full relief.
The Justice Department has called on the Supreme Court to review both cases and make a final decision on whether Trump's order is constitutionally sound. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said it is a “misconception” that birth on US soil confers citizenship, and said the understanding has had “devastating consequences.”
But the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents plaintiffs in the New Hampshire case, argues that the Trump administration is effectively asking the Supreme Court to “rewrite” the citizenship clause and overturn more than a century of “everyday practice” in the country.
Arguments in the case are expected to take place next year, with a decision likely by late June or early July.
