The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s effort to reimagine what virtually everyone in the country has understood for more than a century: People born in the United States are automatically citizens.
An attorney for the Trump administration and another representing children and their parents challenging Trump’s executive order will square off for more than an hour over the meaning of the 14th Amendment, ratified three years after the Civil War. The main part of that amendment’s citizenship clause is clear: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States… are citizens of the United States.”
But Trump and his allies are focused on six words in between those two points. The amendment granted citizenship to people born in the United States “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The arguments will center around the meaning and history of those words.
ACLU attorney Cecillia Wang, arguing for the plaintiffs, will say those words simply mean that the children in question would be subject to the laws of the country. The Trump administration, represented by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, will say that foreign nationals can’t possibly be “subject to the jurisdiction” of a country where they are not citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Even less than a decade ago, Trump’s theory of birthright citizenship would be considered fringe. But the president ran for reelection largely on a promise of curbing immigration, and since reclaiming power, his administration has sought to push the boundaries of policy and law.
“The Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause was adopted to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children — not to children of temporarily present aliens or illegal aliens,” Sauer told the Supreme Court.
The groups challenging the order, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say the citizenship clause enshrined birthright citizenship into the Constitution.
“For generations, all three branches of the US government and the American people have understood, applied, and relied on that constitutional bedrock — embodying our American values of equality and opportunity and contributing to the thriving of our nation,” they told the court.
