Supreme Court rejects Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship
In a 6-3 decision, the court held that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to “every free-born person in this land.”
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected President Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship, ruling that he does not have the power to unilaterally overturn the longstanding constitutional principle that guarantees citizenship to all children born in the United States.
The 6-3 decision was the last one issued on the final day of the court’s term. Chief Justice John Roberts and conservative Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh joined liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson in denying Trump’s proposed limits.
Five of the justices in the majority held that the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, is settled law.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote in the 26-page majority opinion. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
In his own, separate opinion, Kavanaugh argued that Trump’s order did not violate the 14th Amendment but was still invalid because it violated an existing federal statute. Under Kavanaugh’s reasoning, Congress could pass a new law that would make Trump’s order legal.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented.
In his 91-page dissent, Thomas said that the majority opinion “devalues” American citizenship by recognizing a constitutional right to it for “the children of all foreign birth tourists and illegal aliens.”
In response to the decision, Trump shared a link to a news story arguing that his efforts to reverse birthright citizenship could succeed “with or without” the Supreme Court.
Here’s what you need to know about birthright citizenship, how Trump was trying to change it and what it means that the court ruled against him.
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