The birthright citizenship case at the Supreme Court hits close to home for this immigrant mother
WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the first things an Argentinian immigrant did after his son was born in Florida last year was get him a U.S. passport.
He saw the passport as concrete proof that he was American. But now people like him are in a legal battle over President Donald Trump’s decision. executive order this would be denying US citizenship To children born in the United States and to persons who are in the country illegally or temporarily.
“It’s funny because I made the passport application appointment even before he was born,” the 28-year-old woman said as her son, now 7 months old, slept nearby. His lawyers also spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity out of fear of possible punishment from the Republican administration if his name was made public.
“I can say that I’m definitely relieved that it’s at least protected,” he said.
Supreme Court Arguments are heard Wednesday about whether Trump’s order, signed on Jan. 20, 2025, his first day back in office, is compatible with the post-Civil War era 14th Amendment and an 86-year-old federal law that declares anyone born in the country a citizen, with narrow exceptions for children of foreign diplomats and occupying armies. Every court that considered the issue found the decision unlawful and prevented it from coming into force.
The call to repeal birthright citizenship is part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on immigrants, including increased deportations, steep reductions in the number of refugees allowed into the United States, suspension of asylum at the border and removal of temporary legal protections for people fleeing political and economic instability.
The case presents another test for the high court, which has allowed some anti-immigration efforts to continue despite lower courts blocking them.
Constitution and executive order
The first sentence of the 14th Amendment, the Nationality Clause, recognizes as citizens “all persons born or naturalized in the United States of America and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” The case amounts to the last phrase regarding jurisdiction, which was also used in citizenship laws passed in 1940 and 1952.
Trump’s view, put forward in the resolution titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” and supported by some conservative jurists, is that people here are not illegally or temporarily “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and therefore their US-born children do not have the right to citizenship.
Attorney General D. John Sauer wrote that the court should use the case to correct “longstanding misunderstandings about the meaning of the Constitution.”
In this context, Sauer likened the case to the seminal 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public schools, and the landmark 2008 Heller case, which declared that it was a constitutional right for people to possess guns for self-defense.
Last year, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the Trump administration’s effort to defend the decision “an impossible task in light of the text of the Constitution, history, the Court’s precedents, federal law, and the practices of the Executive Branch.”
Sotomayor was joined by two other liberal justices in a ruling dissenting from a ruling by the court’s six conservative justices that used an earlier round of the birthright citizenship dispute to limit the use of nationwide injunctions by federal judges.
challenge trump
Pregnant mothers and their lawyers who objected to the decision, as well as lower court judges who blocked the decision, said the Trump administration’s claims were unfounded.
“The president of the United States is trying to radically reinterpret the definition of American citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who will face Sauer on Wednesday.
More than a quarter of the one million babies born in the United States each year will be affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
While Trump has largely focused his rhetoric and actions on illegal immigration, birthright restrictions would also apply to people legally in the United States, including students and those applying for green cards or permanent resident status.
‘The most beautiful thing’
The Argentinian woman said that she came to the USA with a visa to attend university in 2016 and later applied for a green card.
He explained that after the court’s decision in June, he panicked at a moment when it was at least possible for restrictions to come into effect, especially in states such as Florida, which did not object to Trump’s decision. Lower court decisions over the summer kept the ruling pending and formed the basis of the current Supreme Court case.
Aside from the predictable concerns of a first-time mother, she said: “I never thought I was this close to the end of my pregnancy and that I would have to think about the executive order and how it would affect my baby.”
While his son was excited, he said he wasn’t rethinking his decision to come to the United States or his desire to stay.
“And nothing political or otherwise would change my views on the country, so it gave me the best thing I have today, which is my family,” he said.
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