Supreme Court rejects Trump’s bid to restrict birthright citizenship

The Supreme Court’s decision

Regardless, such a major constitutional change cannot be imposed overnight. Thus, the Trump administration brought the issue to the Supreme Court, where solicitor John Sauer argued that unrestricted birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and birth tourism.

It was claimed that the 14th Amendment’s clause that granted citizenship to those ‘born or naturalised in the US, and subject to jurisdiction thereof’, was originally intended to protect formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. This is where the administration’s rationale about undocumented migrants not being subject to US jurisdiction came from.

Chief Justice John Roberts of SCOTUS argued that the authors of the 14th Amendment intentionally used broad language to prevent attempts to restrict citizenship and followed the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling, rejecting the administration’s bid for restriction; a third major loss for Trump in his second term.

The court also referenced the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents. Following a recent trip to China, he was denied re-entry into the US because he was not a citizen. He challenged the decision, and the Supreme Court ruled that under the 14th Amendment, regardless of parents’ nationality, those born on US soil are indeed citizens.

As of two years ago, immigrants accounted for 14.8% of the nation’s population, hundreds of billions in taxes, and over a trillion dollars in spending power each year. However, with Trump heading the government, migrants are now facing countless mass deportations, with negotiations even underway to relocate some to developing countries, sparking human rights concerns.

From deporting families to detaining parents, the Trump administration’s immigration policies have separated countless families. Many undocumented parents have even been pressured into self deportation, forcing them to choose between leaving their US-born citizen children with a guardian in the country or taking them to a nation they have never experienced.

Had the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s order, an estimated 255,000 children born in the US annually could have been left without automatic citizenship. And by 2045, this could have resulted in a population of approximately 2.7 million migrants without proper citizenship in the US.

Beyond current policies, such a move would cripple daily life. I mean, imagine applying for a job or enrolling your children in public school. It would be almost impossible, with the increase in racial profiling from the system itself, with constant demands for proof of family lineage.

As with most of Trump’s policies, the detail remains vague and we don’t know for sure whether the legislation will see the light of day in his original vision.

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