The Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to green-light President Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship, a doctrine that has long guaranteed citizenship to anyone born on US soil. The policy, issued on Trump's first day back in office, has been tangled in litigation and blocked by lower courts. In a recent set of petitions, government lawyers contend that the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause was meant for freed slaves and their children—not for the children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors, per the New York Times. They claim the Supreme Court has misread the amendment for more than a century, a view that runs counter to existing case law and congressional interpretation.
If the Supreme Court takes up the case, arguments could begin as soon as October, with a decision likely by early summer. Politico notes that that timeline would "effectively highlight Trump's anti-birthright citizenship drive months before the congressional midterm elections." Cecillia Wang, legal director for the ACLU, predicts that the administration's challenge will fail, citing long-standing precedent and constitutional text.
Trump's order collided with the common understanding of the 14th Amendment, which after the Civil War enshrined citizenship rights for those born in the US, overturning the Dred Scott decision that denied citizenship to Black Americans. The amendment's wording—"all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof"—has underpinned birthright citizenship since 1868. The Trump administration insists that children of noncitizens aren't "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, and therefore not entitled to citizenship, per the AP.
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