The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday to consider an executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
The case challenges whether President Trump’s directive complies with the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and federal immigration law enacted in 1952. The order was signed the first day of Trump’s second term and thus far, lower courts have blocked it.
Leading up to the arguments, Trump posted on Truth Social, attacking the courts and defending his plan this past February, saying the Supreme Court will find a way to come to the wrong conclusion.
The 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause was adopted after the Civil War and aimed to disavow the infamous Dred Scott decision in which the Supreme Court held that the U.S. Constitution did not extend the rights and privileges of American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens.
The decision inflamed the national debate over slavery and deepened the divide that led ultimately to the American Civil War. In 1865, After the Union's victory, the Court's ruling in Dred Scott was superseded by passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlawed slavery, and by Congress with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 conferring full citizenship and equal rights flowing from it.
Trump's executive order embraces a narrower view and seeks to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily, such as those on student or work visas, or who have been granted certain deportation protections.
The legal fight before the Supreme Court arose last July, when three plaintiffs with children who would be impacted by the president's executive order filed a classaction lawsuit challenging its legality and seeking to block it.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer has argued in court filings that the 14th Amendment was adopted to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children, not to babies whose parents are undocumented or in the U.S. temporarily. Saucer wrote that the misinterpretation has, in turn, powerfully incentivized illegal entry into the United States and encouraged 'birth tourists' to travel to the United States solely to acquire citizenship for their children.
More than 250,000 babies born each year would be impacted by Trump's executive order, according to the Migration Policy Institute and Penn State's Population Research Institute. The Trump administration has said that the directive is prospective, and federal agencies are directed not to issue citizenship documents for babies born more than 30 days after the policy takes effect.
A decision from the Supreme Court is expected by late June or early July.