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The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the controversial issue of birthright citizenship, effectively overturning President Trump’s prior executive order attempting to end the practice.
“Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause,” the court wrote in its initial summary.
In a 5-4 ruling, justices found that children born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents may be citizens at birth.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights— to freely participate in our political community,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority opinion. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land…’ We keep that promise today. The judgment of the District Court for the District of New Hampshire is affirmed.”
President Trump had recently foreshadowed the possibility of such a ruling from the Supreme Court on this issue. “If this is allowed to stand, it will be a disaster economically for our country,” Trump said earlier this year, as reported by RSBN. “You’ll have 25% of the people coming into our country coming in through birthright citizenship, and we won’t have any control.”
Upon taking office on January 20, 2025, President Trump immediately signed an executive order directing U.S. policy on this issue. The EO directed federal agencies to deny of citizenship documents to persons whose parents were not lawfully present in the United States at the time of said person’s birth.
“…The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” the EO argued.
This order sparked a tide of legal blowback that ultimately resulted in a class-action lawsuit (Trump v. Barbara), which the Supreme Court ruled on this week, according to Fox News.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in writing a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, argued on the historical basis that the Civil Rights Act and the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not guarantee citizenship to those “not domiciled” in the U.S.
“Both the Civil Rights Act and the Citizenship Clause guaranteed citizenship to persons born and domiciled in the United States regardless of their race,” Thomas wrote. “Neither guaranteed citizenship to persons who were not domiciled in the United States. Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans. They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority…The same could not be said for the children of foreign temporary visitors. Foreign temporary visitors were attached to their home country, lacked similar bonds to this country, and would not be called upon in time of war.”