Supreme Court rejects Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. by executive order, reaffirming more than a century of legal precedent and national tradition that babies born on American soil are automatically American citizens.

The 6-3 decision is a blow to Trump, who had lobbied the court to uphold his Day 1 order and attended oral arguments in the case, becoming the first sitting president to do so. He had argued U.S. citizenship should be denied to children born to unlawful or temporary residents.

The 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, says all "persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are citizens. Congress later codified the same language in federal citizenship law in 1940.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said the plain meaning of the text unambiguously applies to all children born in the U.S. regardless of the legal status of their parents.

"Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights -- to freely participate in our political community," Roberts wrote. "The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today."

Roberts and the majority, including justices Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, rejected Trump administration claims that the intent of the amendment was to cover only those with a permanent domicile in the country rather than just a temporary connection.

"To be 'subject to' the jurisdiction of the United States, then, is to live under its dominion," Roberts wrote, quoting a contemporary dictionary, "a meaning reinforced by the Clause's territorial focus on those born 'in' the United States."

He said children born on U.S. soil were, in turn, "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction, "referring to the power of the U.S. to govern those within its territory."

The Supreme Court reached the same conclusion in the landmark 1898 case, Wong Kim Ark v. U.S. "We see no reason to depart from that view today," Roberts said of the precedent.

Three justices dissented from the decision.

Justice Samuel Alito called the ruling a "serious mistake" driven by fear that a contrary decision would lead to "inhumane results."

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote that neither the Constitution nor federal law "guaranteed citizenship to persons who were not domiciled in the United States."

They argued that domicile, or the place of legal permanent home, of a child's parents is the appropriate indicator of a child's citizenship, given the nation's history and tradition.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh also dissented from the court's ruling on 14th Amendment grounds but said federal law clearly makes birthright citizenship widely available. "Unless and until Congress enacts [new] legislation, the executive order contravenes the federal statute," he wrote.

Trump appeared to seize on Kavanaugh's reasoning, pushing Congress to restrict birthright citizenship by passing a new law.

It is not clear, however, how such legislation could avoid violating the 14th Amendment, which five justices said enshrines birthright citizenship.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said he was "disappointed" with the court's decision, raised the possibility of Congress pursuing a constitutional amendment. For that to pass, it would take a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers of Congress and ratification from three-quarters of the states.

Trump appeared to be unwilling to wait for an amendment, writing in his post, "No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!"

Trump has long argued that children born to unlawful immigrants and temporary visitors, like tourists and foreign students, do not qualify for citizenship under terms of the 14th Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War to address the status of former slaves and their descendants.

Immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups challenging the policy change warned that it would harm hundreds of thousands of children born every year to non-citizen parents and create a bureaucratic nightmare for older Americans, who would no longer be able to prove citizenship simply with a birth certificate.

"The court's decision reaffirms a fundamental American promise -- if you are born here, you are a citizen. A president cannot change the Constitution by executive fiat," said ACLU legal director Cecilia Wang, who argued the case before the court. "Our brave clients and our legal team stand with millions of people around our country who spoke up for one of our most cherished rights. The Constitution's guarantee of birthright citizenship stands strong."

An estimated 255,000 children born every year to non-citizen parents would have lost legal status under the order, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Some may have faced difficulty establishing citizenship in any country, effectively being born as "stateless."

Every lower court to have considered Trump's unprecedented order deemed it unlawful, issuing orders to put it on hold. The high court's decision preserves the status quo.