The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday morning in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s (R) stance on birthright citizenship.
This past fall, the Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to uphold his Executive Order issued on Inauguration Day redefining birthright citizenship.
Although the Court considered a case earlier this year stemming from challenges to the Administration’s new policy, the Justices were not tasked at the time with weighing in on the merits of the discussion.
Instead, they were asked at the time to define the bounds of authority for federal judges, determining whether or not they have the power to issue nationwide, or universal, injunctions.
This changed, however, when the Court agreed to hear the president’s substantive appeal back in February.
On Wednesday, President Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to ever attend oral arguments in-person at the Supreme Court. According to reports from Fox News, the president left the building about seven minutes after Solicitor General D. John Sauer concluded his back-and-forth with the Justices.
Overall, the Justices appeared skeptical of the Trump Administration’s position on birthright citizenship, with several of the Court’s more conservative members vigorously questioning the government’s interpretation of the underlying constitutional clause.
That said, ACLU attorney Cecillia Wang was also questioned by many of these same Justices during the second portion of Wednesday’s oral arguments, primarily probing her assertion that the establishment of “domicile” is not a prerequisite to birthright citizenship eligibility.
[RELATED: President Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order to Go Before the Supreme Court This Spring]
Trump’s Executive Order — titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship — was signed just hours after the inauguration and states that “the privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift.”
“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” Trump wrote. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”
[RELATED: Pres. Trump’s Executive Order Redefining Birthright Citizenship Temporarily Blocked by Federal Judge]
Ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment 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.
Currently, the United States grants full citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of whether their parents are in the country legally or illegally.
Incorporated into the Constitution in the wake of the Civil War, the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to ensure that all formerly enslaved people would be granted citizenship.
By ratifying this amendment, the nation overturned the infamous 1857 Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford wherein the Justices decided that enslaved people were not United States citizens.
Setting up the modern interpretation of this clause was the Supreme Court ruling in the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark wherein the citizenship status of Wong Kim Ark — who was born in San Francisco to parents who were Chinese citizens “living and working” and “permanently domiciled” in America — was called into question.
Under the Naturalization Act of 1802, Ark’s parents were ineligible to become naturalized citizens, as Congress continued to limit eligibility for naturalization to “free white persons
.”
The 6-2 majority opinion in the Wong Kim Ark case, authored by Justice Horace Gray, declared that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, Ark was a United States citizen.
Click Here to Read the Full Text of Pres. Trump’s Executive Order
Trump’s Executive Order establishes that “it is the policy of the United States” that citizenship shall not be granted to those whose “mother was unlawfully present in the United States and [whose] father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
Birthright citizenship would also not be extended to those whose “mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and [whose] father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
This clause of the Executive Order would likely impact the ability of children born to those with pending asylum claims, as well as those who are in the United States on temporary work, student, or tourist visas, to obtain birthright citizenship.
Every judge who has reviewed the provision to date has found it to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the Trump Administration is hoping that the Supreme Court will come to a different conclusion upon review.
A ruling from the Supreme Court in this case can be expected in June or early July of this year.
I think you will find that Richard Nixon attended the oral arguments of United States versus Nixon, the case that required him to release the tapes that caused him the presidency. Nixon, an attorney initially planned to argue the case, but wisely chose not to.
Hence, this is only the second time that a sitting president has appeared in the building for our arguments, although Andrew Jackson may well have done it. Our records aren’t that good back for then.