US Supreme Court to weigh Trump’s attempt to curb birthright citizenship

Supreme Court tests Trump’s birthright challenge

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a major test of President Trump’s power to reshape one of the bedrock rules of American citizenship: the promise that almost anyone born on US soil is a citizen from birth.

At issue is an executive order Trump signed on his first day back in office. The directive said that children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants, and to some categories of temporary foreign residents, would no longer automatically receive citizenship. Federal judges in several states immediately blocked the policy nationwide, calling it unconstitutional before it ever took effect, the New York Times reported.

By taking the case, the court is stepping into a clash that goes to the heart of how the 14th amendment has been understood for more than a century. A ruling is expected by late June or early July, setting up a politically explosive decision in the middle of an already charged election-year atmosphere.

The fight centres on a single sentence in the 14th amendment, ratified after the Civil War: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” For more than a century, courts have treated that language as covering almost everyone born in the country, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

Trump and his allies argue that modern interpretations go too far. They claim the amendment was crafted mainly to secure citizenship for formerly enslaved people and their children. Once considered a fringe interpretation, this view has gained traction as Trump has repeatedly vowed to end birthright citizenship.

His executive order sought to put that promise into effect within 30 days. But federal courts in Washington State, Maryland and Massachusetts quickly halted it nationwide. One federal judge called the order “blatantly unconstitutional.”

The birthright case is one of several tests of presidential authority before the justices this term. Other cases examine Trump’s use of emergency tariff powers, his removal of independent agency leaders and his effort to push out a Federal Reserve governor. The court is also hearing cases involving transgender athletes, the Voting Rights Act and a major Second Amendment challenge.

Initially, the administration did not ask the court to rule on the substance of the policy. Instead, it urged the justices to restrict the power of district judges to issue nationwide injunctions. In June, the court — divided 6-3 — did just that, sharply limiting universal injunctions.

Within hours, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a new challenge to Trump’s order. This time, they framed it as a nationwide class action on behalf of all children who would have been denied citizenship under the policy.

The ACLU says that birthright citizenship has been a foundational American principle for more than 150 years and that Trump’s order threatens to render some children “effectively stateless.” The group argues that the Supreme Court already addressed the constitutional question in Wong Kim Ark, which held that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was an American citizen.

In July, a federal judge in New Hampshire certified the case as a class action, allowing it to move forward on behalf of all potentially affected families.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer contends that courts have misunderstood the 14th amendment for decades. He argues it was meant to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their children — not to the children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors. Trump’s order, he says, “restores the clause’s original meaning.”

The White House welcomed the court’s decision to take the case. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said it would have “enormous consequences for the security of all Americans, and the sanctity of American citizenship.”

Civil liberties groups argue that the order violates both the Constitution and long-standing precedent. Cecillia Wang of the ACLU said that “for over 150 years, everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen from birth,” and that lower courts have unanimously held Trump’s order unconstitutional.

Now, the Supreme Court will decide whether to reaffirm more than a century of settled law or fundamentally redefine who is entitled to citizenship in the United States — a decision with sweeping implications for hundreds of thousands of children born each year.