The citizenship clause of the Constitution's
14th Amendment explicitly states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" are citizens.
However, Trump argues in his executive order that the 14th Amendment "has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States," and "has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'"
Trump's order sparked outrage and lawsuits by
more than 20 states and numerous advocacy groups. Federal district courts in Washington, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts blocked the administration from enforcing the president's order by issuing nationwide preliminary injunctions. Federal appellate courts in San Francisco, Boston, and Richmond, Virginia subsequently rejected Trump administration requests to partially block the injunctions.
Trump has
argued that the 14th Amendment is "all about slavery." While the amendment was adopted in 1868 during Reconstruction to grant citizenship to emancipated Black slaves, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) that the amendment confers citizenship to children born in the country regardless of their parents' status.
Briefs—including
one by the immigrant advocacy groups CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, and danother filed on behalf of Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington—urged the Supreme Court to reject the government's argument against the nationwide injunctions.
"Being directed to follow the law as it has been universally understood for over 125 years is not an emergency warranting the extraordinary remedy of a stay," asserts the brief filed by the states—which calls the Trump administration's focus on the nature of the injunctions "myopic."
CASA and Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project argued that nationwide consistency is imperative for immigration policy and that "the executive branch has been complying with the settled interpretation of the citizenship clause for 125 years, and the government has demonstrated no urgent need to change now."
"Whether a child is a citizen of our nation should not depend on the state where she is born or the associations her parents have joined," the groups added.
Earlier this month, more than 200 Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives filed an
amicus brief opposing Trump's order.
"Birthright citizenship is a core piece of our Constitution. Ending it through executive order is simply unconstitutional and a dangerous overreach of executive power," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, said in a
statement announcing the brief.
"All persons born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens, that is what our Constitution dictates and is something President Trump cannot undo by waving a pen," Jayapal added.
