The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is set to hear oral arguments April 1 in Trump v. Barbara, a case challenging an executive order from President Donald Trump that seeks to end birthright citizenship for some children born on U.S. soil.
The case centers on the 14th Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump’s order, issued at the start of his term last year, says U.S. citizenship should not extend to babies born in America if their parents are illegally present, are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, or are only temporarily in the country.
The Trump administration argues the order “restores the original meaning” of the citizenship clause, according to SCOTUSblog. In his order, Trump states that the 14th Amendment was intended to repudiate SCOTUS’ 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which held that African Americans were not U.S. citizens because of their race. He argued, however, that the 14th Amendment “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”
The administration has especially focused on the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” arguing that the phrase means citizenship is contingent on “direct and immediate allegiance” to the government, implying legal residency. It has also raised concerns that birthright citizenship incentivizes women to travel to the U.S. to give birth in hopes of obtaining citizenship for their children.
The administration has also pointed to 19th-century SCOTUS precedent that said the 14th Amendment’s primary purpose was to ensure freed slaves were granted citizenship.
Challengers to the order say it threatens the longstanding historical and legal understanding of birthright citizenship. According to SCOTUSblog, opponents argue the 14th Amendment draws on “a centuries-old, common-law tradition of citizenship by virtue of birth, rather than parentage.” They also point to other court precedents — including an 1844 ruling from a New York court, which granted citizenship to a child born in the U.S. to nonresident Irish parents — as evidence that birthright citizenship has historically been recognized by courts.
SCOTUSblog reported that the challengers also object to the administration’s reading of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” arguing that if those who created the 14th Amendment had intended to exclude children born to foreign parents on U.S. soil from receiving citizenship, “they would have said so.”
They also counter the administration’s claim that children of undocumented immigrants are “only temporarily present” in the U.S. According to SCOTUSblog, the challengers argue that “undocumented immigrants are domiciled in this country: They reside here, with ‘an intention to remain.’”
The challengers further claim the order violates federal immigration law, which mirrors the language of the 14th Amendment. They say that since Congress passed the law in 1940 and reenacted it in 1952, lawmakers were basing the statute’s language off a longstanding tradition of birthright citizenship. The Trump administration, however, has argued that SCOTUS should look at what the statute “actually means, not what Congress thought it meant in 1940 or 1952.”
A decision in the case is expected by late June or early July.