Catholic bishops warn the Supreme Court that Trump is threatening the “moral foundations of American society.”

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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an extraordinary amicus brief on Thursday urging the Supreme Court to strike down President Donald Trump’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship for the children of many immigrants. The conference, which represents active Catholic bishops in the United States, frequently supports conservative positions at the court: In the past, it has argued against same-sex marriage, transgender rights, LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws, reproductive freedom, restrictions on school prayer, and medical aid in dying. But the conference is staunchly opposed to Trump’s draconian immigration policies. And its brief in support of birthright citizenship is a searing, full-throated rebuke of the president’s executive order as an affront to the God-given equality of all people.

On this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode of Amicus, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the remarkable filing and its potential impact on the Supreme Court, which hears the challenge to Trump’s order on April 1. A preview of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Dahlia Lithwick: This is a scorcher of a brief that holds nothing back. It says that the conference’s opposition to stripping folks of birthright citizenship “is motivated by their firmly held belief that each person is endowed by God with an inherent dignity that confers certain universal, inviolable, and inalienable rights.” And then it goes on to say: “The intended and unintended effects of the executive order are immoral and contrary to the Catholic Church’s fundamental beliefs and teachings regarding the life and dignity of human persons, the treatment of vulnerable people— particularly migrants and children—and family unity.” This is a declaration that faith is not on the side of persecuting the most vulnerable communities. 

Mark Joseph Stern: Exactly right. The brief does walk through the legal and historical arguments in favor of birthright citizenship. But it is, first and foremost, making a faith-based claim. Let me just read you some of the headings to get a sense of how completely unsparing this is: “To dismantle the principle of birthright citizenship would undermine both the legal and moral foundations of American society.” “Ending birthright citizenship denies the innate dignity and freedom of the person.” “Ending birthright citizenship weakens and threatens the family.” And it declares that Trump’s executive order is “antithetical to the import of the Church’s teachings because it deprives people … of the legal rights necessary to participate in the society of their birth.”

For those unfamiliar with Catholic teachings, the brief is applying a deeply entrenched idea that when a child is born into a community, they should be able to receive the full benefits of that community and participate in that society, including its “civic life.” And of course, by denying a child citizenship—and in some cases rendering them stateless—this executive order would exclude that person from our “civil community” forever because of something they had no control over: their parents’ immigration status. And that exclusion “from the legal and political structures that govern his life” is to the detriment of both the individual and “the nation.”

Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern

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We had Joseph Margulies on the show a few weeks ago talking about the need to reconnect law and morality. The question doesn’t always have to be: Is it lawful? Sometimes it can also be: Is it right? And I think the point here is that Trump’s order is neither. That’s laid out in the conclusion: “At its core, this case is not solely a question about citizenship status or the Fourteenth Amendment. It is a question of whether the law will affirm or deny the equal worth of those born within our common community—whether the law will protect the human dignity of all God’s children.” Are you surprised to see the conference go so hard against Trump?

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It’s not entirely surprising. The Conference of Catholic Bishops previously sued the Trump administration for illegally suspending a refugee program that it had long helped to implement. And it issued a near-unanimous “special message” in November condemning Trump’s deportation policies, including racial profiling and “vilification” of immigrants. But this brief arguably takes it a step farther. Remember, a majority of the justices are Catholic, and surely familiar with the conference; I think there is a real chance this brief will carry a lot of weight. And it delivers a blunt message, warning that this executive order would inflict a grievous, possibly lethal moral harm on the nation. It would impose a lifelong punishment upon an entire group of people because of something they had no control over. And that punishment would, in turn, hurt the rest of us.

There’s a lot in this brief about the sin of vilifying and excluding immigrants and their offspring. And the idea isn’t just that it is bad for them; it’s that it is bad for all of us. It harms all Americans when we lose the participation of immigrants and their children in our democracy. It harms us when individuals who are born with equal dignity are cut out of our civic culture. Indeed, we, in turn, lose some of our dignity when those individuals are denied a seat at the table of democracy. This is a useful counterweight to some of the vile briefs filed in this case that depict immigrants as criminal degenerates whose children must be punished to preserve American values. This brief says that’s entirely backward: To preserve American values, we must accept and embrace immigrants, and ensure that their offspring are fully American from the moment of birth.

I’m going to say something I don’t say often on this show, but I’ll say it loud and clear: Amen.

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