The United States’ highest court this week seemed divided over whether lower court judges had overstepped their authority in blocking the Trump administration’s attempts to limit birthright citizenship.
Federal judges had put a nationwide block on President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove automatic citizenship status from children born in the United States to immigrants with noncitizen status.
The question at hand is whether the federal judges were allowed to do this. The Trump administration argues they do not, and have overstepped their jurisdiction in this matter.
The decision will also determine the limits of presidential power and whether a president can make such decisions, which will then determine the authority of judges in blocking Trump’s agenda on a much broader level in other cases where he is facing legal challenges.
The United States’ governance system is based on a series of checks and balances where the president enforces laws that Congress has made, and the Supreme Court interprets them and can even overrule them if it deems the laws unconstitutional.
Since Inauguration Day, Trump has signed 151 executive orders, which are directives by the president ordering the government to take specific actions. Their limitations, however, are that they cannot overrule existing federal law or statutes created by Congress.
President Joe Biden signed 162 executive orders during his term, and President Barack Obama signed 277 executive orders during his eight years of office. Trump signed a total of 220 during his entire first term.
Critics of Trump argue that he is overstepping his presidential authority on a number of decisions.
The president declared a national emergency on Jan. 20, vowing to solve the country’s illegal immigration crisis and fulfilling one of his campaign promises to stop an “invasion” at the border.
Trump has vowed to end “birth tourism,” in which he says illegal immigrants are giving birth in this country so that the children will be U.S. citizens.
According to Pew Research Center, the illegal immigrant population was at a 15-year high of 11 million in 2022, while border encounters have been soaring in recent years.
U.S. southern border apprehensions reached a high of 370,883 in December 2023, before dropping in 2024, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
The latest data recorded an 88 percent drop from the previous year, with 29,238 encounters in April this year falling from 247,929 around the same time in 2024.
Constitutional Reinterpretation
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, addressing the citizenship rights of American-born former slaves.
Then in 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in the United States but was denied reentry after leaving to visit China.
The justices said a child born in the United States became a citizen at birth. This set the precedent for birthright citizenship.
The United States is one of about 30 countries that currently offer automatic citizenship by birth. Neighbouring Canada and Mexico do the same.
Trump argues that the amendment was misinterpreted, and the act of birthright citizenship doesn’t necessarily apply to all children born in the United States, particularly immigrants who entered unlawfully or people on a temporary visa.
The statement from the Constitution in question reads: “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 president has argued that the phrase “the jurisdiction thereof” should be interpreted as meaning that the person has sworn allegiance to the country, and to qualify, one parent would need to be a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.
