- Home
- /
- /
- Article
Trump
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether United States President Donald Trump’s plan to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil is unconstitutional.
The justices announced on Friday they will take up the issue, with arguments likely in April and a decision expected by the end of June.
Recall that hours after Trump was inaugurated in January, he signed an executive order declaring that children of undocumented immigrants and foreigners on limited-duration visas would no longer be entitled to U.S. citizenship.
The order seeks to clarify the 14th Amendment, which 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 wherein they reside.”
The president said the order was needed to discourage illegal immigration and “birth tourism,” where pregnant women enter the U.S. legally to gain U.S. citizenship for their children.
Trump’s policy, which fulfilled a campaign pledge, never took effect due to a flurry of legal challenges. Federal judges across the country ruled that the policy is at odds with the Constitution and an 1898 Supreme Court ruling long seen as guaranteeing citizenship to virtually everyone born in the U.S.
Although the courts blocked Trump’s policy within days of its issuance, the Justice Department did not immediately ask the Supreme Court to revive it.
Instead, in March, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to use the birthright-related litigation to tell judges to stop the issuance of nationwide injunctions against the federal government.
Sauer’s move, which put off the high court battle over birthright citizenship for about a year, led to a Supreme Court ruling in June that reined in judges’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions but didn’t slam the door on them altogether. Punch
More like this
