The Supreme Court of the United States, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority:
Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to “every free-born person in this land.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 600 (Sen. Trumbull). We keep that promise today.
Abbie VanSickle, writing at The New York Times:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, reaffirming the long-held principle that the Constitution guarantees that nearly all children born on U.S. soil are citizens.
…
Three of the court’s conservatives — Justice Clarence Thomas, Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch — dissented.
Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship, Blocking a Key Trump Policy
The justices blocked President Trump’s executive order that banned birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary foreign visitors.
Honestly, the fact that those three dissented is not surprising (well, maybe Gorsuch is, a little bit), but it is shocking. That anyone, let alone anyone smart enough to make it to the US Supreme Court, could read the 14th Amendment’s plain, clear language and find a way to dissent is amazing. The tortured logic of the dissents, which dig back into pre-US history, is just bonkers. I’m sure that the framers of the 14th Amendment did take law and tradition from their past into account when creating it, but they certainly made the actual language in this case clear enough to be interpreted plainly, without the knowledge of all of that history.
It’s also unfortunate that there is a door left open by Justice Kavanaugh to revisit this. He writes:
For those reasons, to reiterate, the Executive Order does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Order does contravene 8 U. S. C. §1401(a). Consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress could amend §1401(a) or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country. But Congress has not yet done so.
Disappointing, but I guess I’m used to being disappointed by this Supreme Court. At least the outcome was correct for now.
