The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments on May 15 concerning President Donald Trump’s controversial attempt to end birthright citizenship on May 15, the court announced Thursday.
Trump had issued an executive order on his first day in office seeking to restrict birthright citizenship, a move that was quickly blocked by several appellate courts. He appealed to the Supreme Court on March 13 after a series of legal defeats.
Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which decrees that anyone born on American soil is a citizen. It was one of several amendments enacted in the wake of the Civil War to guarantee rights to formerly enslaved people.
The 14th Amendment says, in part: “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.”
Trump’s order was premised on the idea that anyone in the United States illegally, or on a visa, was not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the country, and therefore excluded from this category.
His order was due to come into effect on February 19, but faced multiple lawsuits around the country that resulted in judges halting it.
District Judge John Coughenour, who heard the case in Washington state, described the president’s executive order as “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades, I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is,” said Coughenour, who was appointed by a Republican president, Ronald Reagan.
The halt on Trump’s birthright citizenship order is just one of the many judicial setbacks his administration has faced as it rushes through contentious immigration and other reforms.
Adverse court rulings have prompted the administration to rail against what it calls activist judges, with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voting through a bill last week to limit federal judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions — although the text has next to no chance of passing the Senate.
AFP
ALSO READ TOP STORIES FROM VERILY NEWS
