Supreme Court won't redefine American citizenship at Trump's request

WASHINGTON (CN) — In a landmark ruling affirming over a century of precedent, the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s wish to put new limits on citizenship rights for children of certain immigrants born in the U.S.

Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, the court ruled that children born in the United States are citizens under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

“The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Roberts wrote for the 5-4 majority. “We keep that promise today.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Roberts’ opinion. Sotomayor and Kagan are Barack Obama appointees, Barrett is a Trump appointee and Jackson is a Joe Biden appointee.

In a series of dissenting opinions, several conservative justices argued for a limited version of citizenship rights for those born on U.S. soil. Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, claimed Tuesday’s ruling “devalues” the dignity and glory of American citizenship. Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, joined Thomas’ opinion.

Writing separately, Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, referred to the court’s holding as degrading the concept of U.S. citizenship.

“This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the court, and in my judgment, the court has made a serious mistake,” Alito wrote.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another Trump appointee, said he would have rejected Trump’s executive order under a federal law codifying the right. However, Kavanaugh would have upheld limits on the right under the 14th Amendment, leaving an opening for congressional legislation limiting citizenship rights.

In 1868, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment, declaring “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” But for the purposes of determining who has citizenship under the 14th Amendment, the White House — bucking longstanding precedent — argued the central clause wasn’t “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” but rather “subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Thirty years after the 14th Amendment enshrined citizenship rights in the Constitution, the Supreme Court affirmed those rights for children of foreign nationals. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, the high court established parameters of what is known as jus soli, or the citizenship of children born in the United States to noncitizens.

For more than a century since then and with little fuss, the United States has granted citizenship to most people — with exceptions for the children of diplomats or invading armies — born within its territorial boundaries.

Then, in an executive order last year, Trump claimed to erase birthright citizenship for the children of individuals who do not have legal status or who only have temporary legal status. He argued that immigrants without legal status and foreigners participating in “birth tourism” had degraded the meaning and value of American citizenship.

While the government has recognized citizenship rights for all individuals born on U.S. soil for more than a century, Trump argued his predecessors got it wrong.

He said the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was a solution to a singular problem: Dred Scott v. Sandford. In that infamous 1857 ruling, the Supreme Court held that formerly enslaved African Americans and their descendants were not citizens.

This theory, the White House argued, was supported by an 1884 case known as Elk v. Wilkins, which held that Native Americans born within the territory of the United States did not have birthright citizenship. Since its enactment, the citizenship clause has included exceptions for the children of diplomats, invading enemy forces and Native Americans.

Congress codified the citizenship rights in 1940 and again in 1952, using identical language to the Constitution.

The Supreme Court rejected the government’s “dramatically revisionist view.” Because of the court’s “odious decision” in Dred Scott, Roberts said, Congress aimed at putting citizenship questions beyond the reach of legislative power and settled the issue once and for all in the 14th Amendment.

“A child born on American soil and subject to American law was made an American citizen,” Roberts wrote.

Roberts said that understanding of citizenship rights dated back to the founders’ intentions for a nation of immigrants.

“The young Republic attracted tens of thousands of émigrés from the Old World — Scotch-Irish, French, German, Welsh, and many more, some of whom hoped to stay only a short time, others of whom hoped never to leave,” Roberts wrote. “No matter their intentions, however, they could be assured that their children would be American citizens by birth alone.”

The majority and dissenters divide sharply over the history undergirding the citizenship clause. Like the government, Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch viewed the amendment as limited to securing equal citizenship for freed slaves.

“The court has repurposed the Fourteenth Amendment to protect its own set of preferred rights that the Reconstruction Congress never contemplated and that cannot find support in its text,” Thomas wrote. “Today, the court does so again by recognizing a constitutional right to citizenship for the children of all foreign birth tourists and illegal aliens.”

The conservative dissenters said citizenship rights were limited to only those with allegiance to the U.S. And Alito claimed that the majority’s misinterpretation of the amendment would produce “grotesque results.”

“While foreigners who wish to immigrate lawfully must sometimes wait for many years, a child born here to a birth tourist is automatically a citizen,” Alito wrote.

When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in April, Trump made the unprecedented move of attending in person. There is no recorded history of a president ever attending an oral argument session.

Following Tuesday’s ruling, Trump said the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold birthright citizenship was “too bad for our country.” And he pushed Congress to do what the court would not.

“We can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process,” Trump posted on his social media platform.

Echoing Kavanaugh’s dissent, Trump claimed no constitutional amendment would be necessary to limit citizenship rights. But a five-justice majority on the high court said otherwise by holding that the 14th Amendment secures the right.

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