Donald Trump’s agenda aimed to attack immigration by suppressing the right to citizenship, but the Supreme Court understands the case differently
The United States Supreme Court struck down US President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship as understood more than a century ago, invalidating an executive order that was a key part of this administration’s agenda even though it was legally questionable from the start.
The decision represents a significant defeat for a president who ran in part on promises to end “birth tourism” and whose second term was largely defined by his push to crack down on both illegal and legal immigration.
The Supreme Court’s decision maintains the understanding that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, even if their parents are not.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which included conservatives and liberals. Three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — dissented from the decision.
“Citizenship, yesterday and today, was the right to have rights — to participate freely in our political community,” Roberts wrote on behalf of the Supreme Court. “The framers of the 14th Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise to this day.”
One of the main arguments presented by Donald Trump was that the 14th Amendment required people to be domiciled in – or intend to remain in – the United States to be entitled to citizenship by birth.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who served as majority spokesman, quickly refuted this argument.
“If Congress intended to make citizenship conditional on each individual’s domicile—a question which ‘is sometimes of great difficulty to decide’—it would be reasonable to expect that there would be at least some discussion of the matter,” Roberts wrote.
“However, the word ‘domicile’ appears only twice in the discussion of the relevant provision of the Civil Rights Act. And it appears in only one speech in the debates over the Citizenship Clause – as part of an explanation of why state citizenship is distinct from national citizenship under the Constitution.”
Division between judges
Perhaps Donald Trump’s attempt to end automatic birthright citizenship was not as out of the ordinary as Supreme Court watchers predicted.
Three members of the court’s conservative majority disagreed with the decision, and one of them would have decided the case based on much narrower arguments.
In the end, Chief Justice John Roberts managed to overturn the president’s executive order, issued on the first day of his term, with only one of the court’s conservatives – Justice Amy Coney Barrett – agreeing with his vote. The court’s three liberal judges also followed the decision.
If Roberts’ mission was to present a unified front on a theory considered fringe just a decade ago, this effort was unsuccessful.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed an opinion concurring with the outcome, but disagreed that the Constitution precluded Trump’s order.
Trump’s reaction
After the decision became known, Donald Trump immediately pressured Congress to eliminate birthright citizenship through legislation, after the Supreme Court rejected his attempt to end it by executive decree.
“The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, which is very bad for our country, but we can easily offset this in Congress through legislation, with the support of the president, as has already been determined in this process,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social.
“No long and complex constitutional amendment is necessary! Congress must start working TODAY to end birthright citizenship, which is expensive and unfair for our country. You will have my full and unrestricted support!”, he added.
Ending birthright citizenship through legislation would likely face strong opposition in Congress.
