The United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday to uphold the country’s current understanding of birthright citizenship, striking down President Donald Trump’s Executive Order seeking to redefine who qualifies for citizenship at birth.
This was the final ruling released on the last day of the Court’s term, unsurprising given the contentious nature of the case.
“Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” the Chief Justice said. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.'”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred in part and dissented in part, agreeing with the majority’s conclusion that the Executive Order is impermissible, but not because he believes it to be unconstitutional.
Instead, Justice Kavanaugh contends that it only violates existing federal statute, meaning that under his interpretation, Congress would be free to amend the law at any time to create “exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country.”
The dissenting opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas and joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, argued that neither the Civil Rights Act nor the 14th Amendment “guaranteed
citizenship to persons who were not domiciled in the United States,” only to “persons born and domiciled in the United States regardless of their race.”
“Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans,” said Justice Thomas. “They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority.”
Thomas concluded by stating that “today’s opinion devalues [American] citizenship.”
Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent suggested that the majority made a “serious mistake” with its ruling in this case.
Because Congress has the authority to confer citizenship on classes of people beyond those guaranteed it by the Constitution, Justice Alito argues that “the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require inhumane results, and we should not adopt an erroneous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment simply out of fear of the consequences of ‘rocking the boat’ or as a reaction to current immigration policy.”
[RELATED: President Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order to Go Before the Supreme Court This Spring]
This past fall, the Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to uphold the 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 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.
The 6-3 ruling released in June found that federal judges “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted [them]” when issuing universal injunctions.
[RELATED: SCOTUS Reins In Federal Judges on Nationwide Injunctions, Yet to Rule on Birthright Citizenship]
President 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 the San Francisco to parents who were Chinese citizens “living and working, 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 sought to establish 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 have not been 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 have impacted 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.
This would mean that George Washington and ALL of the so called founding fathers would definitely not have been birthright Americans. They weren’t of course. George Washington was born in British colony Virginia and Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies.
Trump is loosing bigly. He lost this, he lost the Iran war of choice he started, he will likely be impeached again and convicted this time. It’s basically great! Trump might actually go to prison for his Epstein cover up!!!
Remember the children!
PS
Who the F is Leonard Leo!? He funds this rag. Anyone else notice how it’s free. Unlike the PPH. It’s weird. A “conservative” site funded through billionaire funded non profits.
The ruling is correct but only with regard to the Executive Order – you can’t override the Constitution from the Oval Office. But the SCOTUS majority isn’t understanding the intent of the 14A correctly.
Hey Lenny, I fund this rag also / Epstein cover up, ask the dumbocrats about that. They had the files for 4 years and did nothing with them. If Trump was in there they would have released it 2 weeks before the dumbest person to run for president lost. Sorry for your mental illness
Hey tervis,
1. How much did you donate to this rag!? I guarantee it’s peanuts compared to the billionaire that actually funds this welfare propaganda.
2. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. Trump’s name comes up thousands of times!!!! Trump flew on Lolita express! Trump is accused of raping an 11 year old girl in the so called Epstein files. You F’ing idiot!!!!
3. The democrats are in it too!The Maine democrat William Cohen (Janets’s friend) went to rape island. Bill Clinton flew on Lolita express!! How stupid are you? The democrats would have released itt? Really!? Joe Biden took showers with his tween daughter Ashley. Hunter Biden was trading access to the White House for crack and Ukrainian hookers! You dummy!!
4. Epstein was a jewish mossad agent you moron. He’s not the only one.
Historians will state that this decision is what destroyed the United States much as the vandals destroyed Rome.
Hey Lenny I never argue with an idiot, they bring you down to their level and then they beat you with experience
Those of us who have a respect if not reverence for the rule of law and constitutionalism read this and weep. The current court under Roberts is so blatantly result oriented. Obamacare is okay under the commerce clause or because the penalties are a tax, and Congress can tax people. There constitution gets an absurd expansionist reading. Now the constitution is frozen in 1868 because no one could have anticipated birth tourism. So, the actual intent of the citizenship amendment (i.e., to protect emancipated slaves) is trashed, and the notion that the constitution can be interpreted in light of changed technology and circumstances is ignored. What principles of jurisprudence does John Roberts support?
Students of this court will struggle to find any consistent principles of judging, but only a pattern of result driven decisions by the liberal coalition.
So, the solution now is to prohibit pregnant women from entering the US unless they are US citizens?
If SCOTUS is right on this, then Congress needs to fix the 14th.
That ain’t gonna happen.
We’re screwed.
Birth right was added in 1868 so the freed slaves children could be citizens. The ruling locks us in 1868 when there was no Birth tourism. China has over 1000 Birthing “tourist companies. For $100,000.00 they with fly you to the U.S.A. one month before their due date. They provide housing, in house nursing, doctors, pre natal care, an agent to help submit the babies citizen forms and the fly them back home. They also provide care and “education” to the new U.S. citizens. It is estimated that China has well over quarter million birth right U.S. citizens, all of which when they turn 18 can receive a ballot to vote in our elections.