US Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship in blow to Trump
On Truth Social, Trump said the court’s decision was “very bad” and vowed to continue fighting to end birthright citizenship through legislation.
“There is no need for a long and cumbersome constitutional amendment,” he said. “Congress must begin working today to end birthright citizenship, which is expensive and unfair to our country.”
The United States has granted citizenship to anyone born in the country since 1868; This right was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and supported by later U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
The 14th Amendment, passed in the wake of the US civil war and originally intended for recently freed slaves, states that “all persons born or naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.”
“Citizenship, then and now, is the right to have rights, to participate freely in our political community,” Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. he wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment made this promise ‘to every person born free in this land,'” he wrote.
“Today we are keeping that promise,” the chief judge said.
The Trump administration has argued that the “jurisdiction” specified in the 14th Amendment should not extend to the children of people who do not live in the country permanently.
Three of the court’s nine justices dissented: Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito.
Justice Thomas argued that the 14th amendment had been “repurposed for political projects” and that the freed slaves originally intended were “Americans” with no allegiance to other countries.
Samuel Alito, another of the dissenting justices, called the decision a “serious mistake” that “gives citizenship to nearly everyone born in this country”; This includes people who come to the United States for the express purpose of bearing a child and then return to their country of origin.
The case was of great importance to President Donald Trump, who held a brief but historic hearing to watch oral arguments in April.
On
“American citizenship is not the birthright of the world,” he said. “No provision of the Constitution can be read to require our national self-destruction.”
But immigration advocates and critics of the administration celebrated the decision.
Hakeem Jeffries, who leads Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, said the high court, by applying the law and using the Constitution as a guide, “finally affirmed that all persons born in the United States are American citizens.”
“There is no doubt and there will be no question,” Jeffries said.
Dariely Rodriguez, general counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the ruling “solidifies what we have known to be true for over a century.”
“Everyone born on American soil is born an American citizen, regardless of the legal status of their parents,” he added. “As a nation, we have passed an incredible test of our collective will and emerged victorious.”
