Khaberni - U.S. President Donald Trump plans to attend a U.S. Supreme Court session today, Wednesday, on the right to citizenship by birth, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to attend oral arguments before the country's highest court.
The official schedule of the Republican President, distributed by the White House, includes a stop at the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices will hear Trump’s challenge to a lower court ruling that invalidated his executive order restricting citizenship by birth.
The order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, states that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily do not count as American citizens.
This represents a radical shift from the long-standing interpretation that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and federal law grant citizenship to everyone born on U.S. soil, with few exceptions.
The "birthright citizenship" case has opened a major constitutional and political battleground in the United States and has sparked widespread debate, facing opposition from political, academic, and human rights sectors that consider this move unconstitutional and potentially harmful to large numbers of children born annually in the United States.
Constitutional right
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to citizenship by birth. The citizenship clause 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".
The language of this clause means that anyone born within U.S. territory, with few exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats, is automatically considered an American citizen. The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 following the Civil War (1861-1865) to ensure citizenship rights for former slaves.
The goal was to overturn the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, known as "Scott v. Sandford," which denied citizenship to individuals of African descent. The citizenship clause establishes the principle of "jus soli" (citizenship based on place of birth) for those born within the United States.
Trump and his legal team, according to The New York Times, argue that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" requires complete political allegiance not available to illegal immigrants, hence their children do not deserve automatic citizenship.
Conversely, the vast majority of constitutional law experts and historians believe that this interpretation contradicts the spirit of the Constitution, which was originally designed post-Civil War to ensure no group is deprived of rights based on their parents' status.
Trump is betting on the "judicial revolution" he initiated by appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court, hoping that this new composition will be prepared to reconsider historical precedents and offer a new interpretation that aligns with his "hardline" immigration policies, according to The New York Times.
Two options for the Supreme Court
The Washington Post sees two options for the Supreme Court: either issue a comprehensive constitutional ruling that settles the case forever or choose a "narrower" path that focuses on the fact that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 had already enshrined this right independently of the Constitution.
The newspaper states this legal outlet means that the president does not have the authority to cancel a law enacted by Congress simply by an executive order, making Trump's attempt a "unilateral maneuver" that is illegal.
"The Washington Post" emphasizes that reviewing a policy that has been stable for decades requires compelling historical evidence, which the newspaper sees as absent or conflicting in the arguments presented by Trump's team.
