The US Supreme Court has struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices upheld a 150-year-old precedent giving automatic American citizenship to babies born in the US.
Trump earlier issued an order to end automatic citizenship for babies born to parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary visas.
The ruling definitively slams the door on Trump’s efforts, and there is little the president can do to reverse it.
By citing the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, the Supreme Court definitively slams the door on Donald Trump’s efforts to deny birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented migrants and most temporary foreign residents.
According to Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, the language of the amendment – passed shortly after the end of US civil war – is clear: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”.
Trump and his legal team had argued that undocumented migrants were not “subject” to US jurisdiction. Roberts and the court majority emphatically disagreed.
Because the court’s majority held that the US Constitution is explicit in this regard, there is little that Trump can do to reverse its ruling – and deny birthright citizenship – short of amending America’s founding document. That is an arduous task that has only been accomplished 27 times in US history.
Opponents say the order violated the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which says that people “born or naturalised” in the country are citizens.
President Donald Trump has yet to respond to his loss in a case in which he has shown a strong personal interest. He signed the executive order seeking to prohibit birthright citizenship on his first day back in the White House for his second term.
But more extraordinarily, he attended oral arguments for the case in April. He sat in the audience as his Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued on behalf of the Trump administration.
Critics said his appearance was an improper effort to influence the court on a decision with major repercussions for his domestic policy.
The president left after Sauer’s presentation, which was subjected to intense scrutiny from the justices, suggesting that a majority of the court was unconvinced by Trump’s justifications to end birthright citizenship.
Afterwards, Trump berated the justices in public remarks saying that judges who he appointed but vote against him are “stupid people.”
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