Following the Supreme Court’s decision to hear arguments in the case next month, President Trump said on Thursday that he is confident his executive order restricting automatic birthright citizenship would be ruled lawful.
When Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the high court had set oral arguments for May 15, he said, “I am so happy.”
The president contended, “I believe the case has been so misunderstood.” “The issue of birthright citizenship is slavery.”
Plaintiffs have argued that Trump’s Day One executive order to deny birthright citizenship to illegal immigrants violates a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution in a series of lawsuits filed by dozens of Democratic state attorneys general, immigrant rights organizations, and expectant mothers.
“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,” reads the citizenship clause of the Reconstruction amendment, which was enacted in 1868, during the post-Civil War era.
According to the Trump administration, the birthright citizenship line is directly related to slavery and does not apply to anyone who are temporarily in the US, such as those on work or student visas, or to immigrants who entered the country illegally.
It is not the case that visitors who touch a piece of sand suddenly become citizens. Regarding the 14th Amendment, Trump claimed that it was all about slavery.
“Look at the dates on which it was signed,” the president added. “It was right at that era, during – right after the Civil War – and if you look at it that way, the case is an easy case to win.”
According to Solicitor General John Sauer, “birth tourism” and illegal immigration are encouraged by unrestricted birthright citizenship.
Additionally, the Trump administration has maintained that a Supreme Court decision from 1898 that has traditionally been construed as granting US citizenship to children born to non-citizen parents only applies to children whose parents had a “permanent domicile and residence in the United States.”
“I hope the lawyers talk about birthright citizenship and slavery, because that’s what it was all about,” Trump stated. “And it was very positive – It was meant to be positive – and they use it now instead, not for slavery.”
“They use it for people that come into our country and they walk in and all of a sudden they become citizens, and they pay a lot of money to different cartels and others.”
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“It’s all about slavery. And if you look at it that way, we should win that case,” according to the president.
A request by the Trump administration to limit the reach of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Washington state, Massachusetts, and Maryland that stopped the president’s Jan. 20 order while legal proceedings are ongoing was not acted upon by the justices in the Supreme Court’s unsigned order.
