Is Trump planning a glare-a-thon?
The Supreme Court will hear arguments this morning (10 a.m. ET) in a case testing whether Donald Trump’s reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause means what it say or not. Trump, in his mind the nation’s foremost constitutional scholar, argues that the provision should exclude anyone born to undocumented immigrants or noncitizens temporarily present on U.S. soil. CNN is providing live updates.
A ruling in favor of the Trump administration could redefine what it means to be an American. It could also have sweeping practical consequences, stripping citizenship from more than an estimated 200,000 babies born in the United States each year to undocumented immigrants.
The executive order, which was blocked by lower courts and has never gone into effect, would only affect babies born in the future. Opponents say a decision to uphold it would create chaos and uncertainty for newborns and their parents, and cast doubt over the status of millions of people who have already benefited from birthright citizenship.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he was considering attending the oral arguments today. He would be the first president in history to do so, the Times reports. Presumably, he thinks his holding a glare-a-thon during oral arguments will keep conservative justices in line. If he can keep his eyes open for it.
Then again, Trump said he would walk down the CAPITOL with his Jan. 6 mob and did not.
After suggesting he might attend the hearing in November when the court heard arguments on whether he could use emergency powers to levy tariffs on goods from any country he pleases, Trump backed out. He lost that case in a 6-3 decision. He’ll think better of it again this morning.
The question before the court on Wednesday involves the meaning of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War. The amendment reversed one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious decisions, the ruling in the 1857 Dred Scott case, which had denied citizenship to Black Americans.
The key provision of the amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That language was mirrored by Congress in a 1952 law, and has been understood in court rulings and executive actions for more than a hundred years to guarantee birthright citizenship.
In a key precedent, the Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that Wong Kim Ark, a man of Chinese ancestry born in San Francisco to noncitizen parents, was a U.S. citizen.
In their brief to the court, plaintiffs argue that the 14th Amendment’s language “drew on and reaffirmed a centuries-old, common-law tradition of citizenship by virtue of birth, rather than parentage.” Trump disagrees. Strongly, of course.
A decision is expected by the end of June or early July. If past is precedent, it could be the last decision the court issues this session.