Since President Donald Trump’s initial campaign for the 2016 presidential election, anti-immigrant rhetoric has been baked into his promises. His “build the wall” promise took the country by storm, coupled with claims that “illegal aliens” were bringing crime and taking jobs. He even called for a “Muslim Ban,” claiming that a complete denial of entry to anyone from countries with a history of terrorism — akin to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 — would make the United States safer.
Once in office, he largely followed through on his proposed immigration policy. In 2019, refugee admissions were at their lowest since the program began in 1980. He also halted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was aimed at protecting young children from deportation, for first-time applicants. With all of his undoing of historical U.S. immigration policy, his current attempt at undermining immigrant rights falls right in line.
On the first day of his second term in office, Trump issued Executive Order 14160, which aimed to strip citizenship from children whose parents were not legal citizens at their birth. The order received criticism from across the country, with three different district judges attempting to apply a nationwide injunction to block the order. However, the Supreme Court ruled that district courts could not place nationwide injunctions on federal policies, favoring class-action lawsuits instead.
Much of the anger was a result of the seemingly clear constitutional violation posed by the executive order. The idea that being born on U.S. soil is all that is needed to be a U.S. citizen is baked into the understanding of our country. Not only that, but the Supreme Court’s ban on nationwide injunctions removed a major check on the executive power by the judicial branch. Essentially, Trump violated the Constitution, and judges were forced to sit by and watch.
In January, it was announced that the Supreme Court would be hearing the case on April 1, further validating the idea that birthright citizenship was up for debate. The federal government’s argument focused on the specific phrasing of the Constitution, specifically the idea that all people born in the United States were citizens, as long as they were under the authority of U.S. law. This modifier would, in theory, exclude those within the United States but not under U.S. jurisdiction. Historically, that exception has applied to situations like children being born to foreign ambassadors, but the recent Supreme Court arguments attempted to twist these words so they applied to the children of immigrant parents.
Using this idea, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that “jurisdiction” in this context meant allegiance to the United States. Following this logic, Sauer claimed that one should only receive citizenship if they have established domicile, or a permanent home within the United States, and the domicile of a child would naturally follow that of their parents. Thus, he argued that a child born to parents without legal citizenship would not have allegiance to the United States, and therefore should not be granted citizenship.
There are many reasons that his argument falls apart, including the lack of historical precedent. But that’s to be expected. This case, which calls into question a right explicitly stated in the Constitution, was naturally going to be an inherently flawed argument. When it comes to birthright citizenship, there is no room for ambiguity or legal debates, it is a universally agreed-upon truth of being an American. Undermining ideas such as these is to undermine the foundation of the United States in general. When these basic tenets of American rights are denied to groups like the children of immigrants, it will become easier to undermine more and more rights for more and more citizens. The case won’t be decided until late June, but what the outcome should be is clear.
