In a rebuke of President Trump, the Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship

Consider this. The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship striking down a key policy goal of the Trump administration. But the court was divided. What's in the opinion? And what do the votes tell us about how the justices are thinking about this issue?

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It's considered this from NPR. Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed all children born in the U.S. are citizens under the U.S. Constitution. The split decision invalidates an executive order President Trump signed last year that sought to bar citizenship for babies born in the U.S. If their parents entered the country illegally or are only living here temporarily. NPR's Supreme Court and judiciary correspondent Carrie Johnson and national political correspondent Mara Liason are here to impact the decision. Carrie, I want to start with you. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion in this case. What did he say on behalf of the majority? The chief took a march through history, starting with English common law, because he says this basically has been the understanding for well over 100 years. He also mentioned Dred Scott, one of the worst decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and spent a lot of time on the 14th Amendment.

That amendment says all persons born and naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. of the United States. The chief was joined by four other justices fully, in his opinion. The court's three liberals, as well as Amy Coney Barrett. Now, Brett Kavanaugh wrote his own opinion. He agreed that this case, in this case, that the people challenging Trump's executive order should win, but not based on the 14th Amendment. His reasoning was based on narrower ground that Congress passed laws codifying what that amendment has to say, and those statutes were enough for the court to decide against President Trump here. Brett Kavanaugh said that might mean Congress could go back and have something to say about the law. Got it. Okay. What about the dissenters in this case?

They were much more aggressive. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a lengthy dissent, the longest among everyone else who did the writing today. He said the majority misunderstood what the 14th Amendment is about. Samuel Alito Samuel Alito says the court made a serious mistake. He also spent time talking about birth tourism. This is also something President Trump's worried about the idea that wealthy people are coming to the country just to have a baby who becomes a citizen and then leaving without loyalty or allegiance to the country. Now, this does not seem like a widespread problem, but we don't have data on that. Mara, over to you. What do you make of this decision and what it might mean for President Trump? Well, politically, it's a setback. It's a legal loss. If the court had voted for

Trump, they would have changed the definition of what it means to be an American and who gets to decide what it means to be an American. Donald Trump was not happy about this decision. He posted on truth social too bad for the country, but he also said that it could be, quote, easily resolved if Congress would pass legislation banning birthright citizenship, kind of the Brett Kavanaugh point of view. Now, globally, it isn't unheard of for the idea of automatic birthright citizenship to be revoked. Ireland, I believe, did it back 20 years ago. Mara, is this realistic that Congress can address it, as some of the conservatives and the president himself have suggested. Well, conservatives will push for this, but it remains to be seen if a majority, even of Republicans in Congress,

want to vote on birthright citizenship this close to an election. Donald Trump has been very frustrated recently about the limits of his power in the Senate. Republican senators are very loyal to him, but they're not willing to do everything he wants when he wants it. And also, this is an election that has not been, first and foremost, about immigration. For independence and swing voters, this election has been about. about the economy and affordability, not about birthright citizenship. So it's an open question about how much Donald Trump wants to push this and make birthright citizenship the focus of his midterm campaign. Now, the president does have a lot of leeway when it comes to immigration and protecting the nation's

borders. The Supreme Court just affirmed that there are limits to that power. Carrie, does today's decision create guardrails around the president's ability to act on this issue? In some ways, yes, we now have five votes from the Supreme Court saying this is part of the Constitution. So it would require an amendment to change that. But for some of the people who brought this challenge, like the NAAC Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU, this was really supposed to be an easy case and reaffirm our understanding of the law and the way it's been for over 160 years. And they were surprised at how divided the Supreme Court was on this issue.

For that reason alone, I don't think we're done talking about this politically or legally. No, I think that Trump has really succeeded in pushing the Overton window. in other words, changing the parameters of the debate. Before this, birthright citizenship was outside the parameters. It was a settled matter. Now it's inside. And even though the Supreme Court reaffirmed the executives' control over immigration policy in other cases, they drew the line at birthright citizenship.

And in a weird way, that could be a political boon for him. Because if they had ruled for him, there would have been a tremendous amount of chaos to sort out which babies were citizens and which were not. And now he can just keep the message without. the headaches of implementation. And it was a big day at the Supreme Court, so I do want to turn to another case that was decided. The court struck down limits on political party spending. Carrie, tell us more. The justices struck down yet another post-Watergate law that tried to police money in politics. They said this is a free speech issue that money is speech and First Amendment

protected and not an issue of public corruption. Mara, talk to us about the politics here. Well, this was a clear win for Republicans and conservatives. They already have a huge financial advantage in this cycle. This ruling will make it even more effective. It will allow them to coordinate with Republican candidates more easily. It will allow them to buy advertising spots at lower rates. Now, whether voters care about campaign finance as a voting issue, I'm not sure, but this ruling does fit into the overall argument that Democrats are trying to make, which is that Donald Trump and his party are corrupt. They only care about billionaires. They're getting rich off their offices. And they don't care about ordinary people.

All right. Last thing here for each of you and Marr, I'll start with you. How do you think this term went for President Trump? Overall, I think it was a big winning term for Trump. The court expanded executive power over and over again. That's what Trump wants. He says Article 2 gives him the right to do whatever he wants. So I think the term was a big winner. Yes, there were some big exceptions. Birthright citizenship was one. Tariffs was another. But overall, he comes out of this term with the executive's powers enhanced. Yeah, and in fact, the slaughter decision this week, which basically gives President Trump and future presidents the power to fire at will heads of formerly independent agencies, that's going to have huge repercussions and could have big consequences for democracy too. And here's Carrie Johnson and Mara Liason, thanks to both of you. You're welcome. Thanks. For a deeper look on the legal implications of the decision, we're joined by Amanda Frost. She's a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Welcome. Thanks for having me. So, Amanda, for people who are perhaps just catching up on today's big news out of the Supreme Court, would you just break down this decision on citizenship for us?

Five of the justices said he misunderstood the Constitution, that the Constitution did require near universal birthright citizenship. And then sixth Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, said that a federal statute barred Trump from implementing his executive order. Now, this executive order, which is now struck, was just one part of the Trump administration's broad crackdown on. immigration as we look forward. Are there other related cases working through the courts right now that we should have our eyes on? Well, I should say the Trump administration had succeeded in several of its major immigration efforts before the Supreme Court this term. So just last week, it issued its decision announcing that the court said it could not review the Trump administration's decision to terminate temporary protected status for Syrians and Haitians. But that decision could apply to all the

individuals over a million people with temporary protected status in the United States, potentially leading to their removal over the coming year. And as well, the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration's view of an asylum provision that said individuals who are not yet in the United States cannot seek asylum, even if they're at the border. Earlier today, in a comment on truth social, President Trump called on Congress to pick up his cause. I'm going to quote him here. He wrote that Congress should start today to work on ending expensive and unfair to our country. birthright citizenship. And I wonder, from your perspective, is that a strategy that could pass legal muster in a way an executive order could not? Absolutely not. I mean, the Constitution is the

Supreme Law of the Land. And five members of the Supreme Court said the Constitution does not permit the interpretation that Trump was forwarding before them. So a statute would fare no better than an executive order. But let me just say that if the nation is concerned about various issues that come up regarding birthright citizenship, for example, birth tourism, which appears to be a small number of people, but nonetheless is a reality. There are ways to combat that that don't end birthright citizenship for hundreds of thousands of people going forward. In fact, there is a law on the books that would prevent birth tourism if the Trump administration would enforce it. Similarly, if we don't like undocumented immigration, there are ways to combat that without penalizing

the innocent children of undocumented immigrants who are born and lived their whole life in the United States. Over the course of President Trump's presidency, we've seen him push repeatedly to redefine who is an American. In fact, as many may remember, the president attended the arguments in April over birthright citizenship, which is the first time a sitting president has attended that sort of hearing. Can you talk a bit about how this administration has already eroded citizenship rights in this country? Well, first of all, simply by issuing this executive order and raising these arguments, the president took what was a fringe idea and moved it into the mainstream discourse. And by a fringe idea, I mean, very few people supported this view of the citizenship clause.

In fact, I don't think this precise line where he was trying to carve out children of undocumented immigrants and temporary lawful immigrants had ever been drawn before by anyone. So this president was attempting something brand new that had not been accepted by presidents before him, by the Supreme Court in multiple decisions in both dicta and holding and by legal scholars. So this was a fringe idea, and I think he has effectively moved it into the mainstream forefront of discussion, although this Supreme Court decision might shut it down. This decision also checks executive power in a way that this court has not always done. What's that tell you?

Well, that tells me when the Constitution is clear enough and when the policy at stake is important enough, the Supreme Court will push back on claims of executive authority. In the other immigration cases where President Trump did prevail this term, there were statutes issued by Congress that did give the president some discretion in leeway, and there was a debate about exactly how much, but the court sided with the president. But here, the whole purpose of the citizenship clause was to take away the question of who could be a citizen of the United States from the political branches, from the whims of the majority. And for that reason, I think the court recognized that and upheld the near-university of birthright citizenship that our nation has consistently followed pretty much since 1868.

UVA law professor Amanda Frost, thanks so much. Thank you. This episode was produced by Jeff Pierre, Megan Lim, and Tyler Bartlam. It was edited by Anna Yucanana of Sarah Handel and Ten Beat Aremius. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorney.

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