US Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to curtail birthright citizenship
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The news: The US Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s order curtailing birthright citizenship, rejecting one of his signature immigration policies in a 6-3 ruling.
The court found an executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term could not be squared with the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which has long been understood to guarantee citizenship to virtually everyone born on US soil.
The order sought to deny citizenship to children born in the US if neither parent was a citizen or legal permanent resident, affecting an estimated 250,000 children a year, according to Bloomberg.
What they said: “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
“The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today.”
Six justices ruled against Trump, though only five did so on constitutional grounds. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred in the result but said the order violated federal law first enacted in 1940, not the Constitution.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented. Thomas argued that citizenship at birth turned not on soil but on “primary allegiance” based on domicile, contending the 14th Amendment was meant to recognise freed slaves who had no other homeland and owed allegiance to no foreign power, and that children born in the US to parents not domiciled there were not entitled to birthright citizenship.
The context: The order, blocked by lower courts, never took effect. It is the third time this year the court has invalidated a signature Trump initiative, after striking down his global tariffs in February and blocking him from removing a Federal Reserve governor at will yesterday.
The sources: Supreme Court of the United States, Bloomberg, Reuters
