Birthright citizenship Supreme Court case Trump brings a constitutional debate over the 14th Amendment to the forefront with major implications for immigration and identity.
For generations, most legal experts and the courts have agreed that the Constitution guarantees citizenship to nearly all babies born in the United States.
But ever since Donald Trump issued an executive order to eliminate so-called birthright citizenship for the infants of undocumented immigrants and temporary residents, some conservative legal scholars have begun re-examining the history of the 14th Amendment, long understood as the source of the birthright guarantee.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the legality of Mr. Trump’s executive order, and some conservative legal experts say that, in light of new scholarship, it might be a closer call than once thought.
“A lot of people, when Trump first started talking about it, thought this is crazy,” said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, who was a top lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “But in the intervening years, a lot more serious people are taking it seriously.”
Even as the legal debate has grown more robust, many legal experts, including Professor Yoo, remain confident that a majority of justices across the ideological spectrum will rule against Mr. Trump’s quest to redefine citizenship. Doing so would mean another major defeat for Mr. Trump in front of a court that includes three of his own nominees. Last month, the court invalidated the president’s sweeping tariffs on imports from major U.S. trading partners.
The debate over the bounds of birthright citizenship moves from law review articles to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, in a historic case that will test the president’s power and the common understanding of what it means to be an American.
The Trump administration is asking the court to reinterpret the 14th Amendment, which was added to the Constitution in 1868 after the Civil War. The amendment reversed the Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Dred Scott, which in 1857 had denied citizenship to Black Americans. “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,” the amendment declared.
The key question for the justices is what it means for a person to be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, a phrase that courts have for more than 125 years interpreted as meaning nearly everyone was born on U.S. soil.
