US court poised to reject Trump’s birthright citizenship limits
The Supreme Court seemed poised Wednesday to reject US President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship in a momentous case that was magnified by his unparalleled presence in the courtroom.
Conservative and liberal justices questioned whether Trump’s order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens comports with either the Constitution or federal law.
Arguments lasted more than two hours in a crowded courtroom that included not only Trump, the first sitting president to attend arguments at the nation’s highest court, but also Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and in seats reserved for the justices’ guests, actor Robert De Niro.
The case frames another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power, which has largely ruled in the Republican president’s favour. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices. A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.
Trump, the media-savvy president, spent just over an hour inside a courtroom that prohibits cameras and all electronic devices for arguments made by the Republican administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General D John Sauer. The president departed shortly after lawyer Cecillia Wang began her presentation in defence of broad birthright citizenship.
After the court adjourned, Trump posted on Truth Social: “We are the only Country in the world stupid enough to allow birthright citizenship!” Actually, about three dozen countries, nearly all of them in the Americas, guarantee citizenship to children born on their territory.
Justices ask about the Trump order’s legal basis: Trump heard Sauer face one sceptical question after another. Justices asked about the legal basis for the order and voiced more practical concerns.
“Is this happening in the delivery room?” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, drilling down into the logistics of how the government would actually figure out who is entitled to citizenship and who is not.
Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that Sauer was relying on quirky exceptions to citizenship to make a broad argument about people who are in the country illegally. “I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” Roberts said.
Justice Clarence Thomas sounded the most likely among the nine justices to side with Trump.
“How much of the debates around the 14th Amendment had anything to do with immigration?” Thomas asked, pointing out that the purpose of the amendment was to grant citizenship to Black people, including freed slaves. Several courts have blocked the citizenship restrictions: The justices heard Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them. The restrictions have not taken effect anywhere in the country. The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
