In a significant move, the Supreme Court has decided to review the constitutionality of President Donald Trump's directive on birthright citizenship.
This directive posits that children born to parents residing in the United States illegally or temporarily are not entitled to American citizenship. The Supreme Court's decision to hear Trump's appeal comes in response to a lower court ruling that invalidated the citizenship restrictions, which have not been implemented anywhere in the country.
According to the Western Journal, the case is slated for argument in the spring, with a definitive ruling anticipated by early summer. Trump's birthright citizenship order, signed on January 20, the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration's extensive immigration crackdown.
This crackdown includes immigration enforcement surges in several cities and the first peacetime invocation of the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act.
The administration is currently grappling with multiple court challenges. The high court has issued emergency orders with mixed implications. For instance, the justices effectively halted the use of the Alien Enemies Act to expedite the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members without court hearings.
However, the Supreme Court permitted the resumption of extensive immigration stops in the Los Angeles area after a lower court prohibited the practice of stopping individuals based solely on their race, language, job, or location.
The justices are also considering the administration's emergency appeal to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area for immigration enforcement actions. A lower court has indefinitely blocked this deployment.
Trump's birthright citizenship is the first immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. His order challenges the interpretation that the Constitution's 14th Amendment grants citizenship to everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
Lower courts have consistently ruled the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that curtailed judges' use of nationwide injunctions. However, the Supreme Court did not exclude other court orders with nationwide effects, including in class action lawsuits and those initiated by states. The justices did not determine at that time whether the underlying citizenship order was constitutional.
Every lower court that has examined the issue has concluded that Trump's order violates or likely violates the 14th Amendment, designed to ensure that black people, including former slaves, had citizenship. Birthright citizenship automatically confers American citizenship to anyone born in the United States, including children born to mothers residing in the country illegally.
The case under scrutiny originates from New Hampshire. In July, a federal judge blocked the citizenship order in a class action lawsuit encompassing all children who would be affected. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is spearheading the legal team representing the children and their parents who challenged Trump's order.
Cecillia Wang, the ACLU's national legal director, stated, "No president can change the 14th Amendment's fundamental promise of citizenship." She added, "We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term."
The administration also requested the justices to review a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In July, that court ruled that a group of Democratic-led states that sued over Trump's order required a nationwide injunction to prevent the issues that would arise from birthright citizenship being in effect in some states and not others. The justices took no action in the 9th Circuit case.
The administration maintains that children of non-citizens are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship. D. John Sauer, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, argued that the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause was adopted to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children not to the children of aliens illegally or temporarily in the United States.
Twenty-four Republican-led states and 27 Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are supporting the administration. As the Supreme Court prepares to hear the case, the nation awaits a ruling that could redefine the concept of birthright citizenship in the United States.
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