Supreme Court orders arguments in birthright citizenship case

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court on Thursday said it would hold a special oral argument session to consider President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order limiting birthright citizenship for certain immigrants nationwide.

Last month, Trump asked the justices to enforce a limited version of his Day 1 order, unilaterally ending the long-recognized right after three lower courts put nationwide pauses on the policy. The justices delayed a decision on Trump’s appeal, instead adding a day to their calendar to hear oral arguments on the case.

Emergency appeals are typically decided without oral argument. After facing criticism for ruling on high-profile legal issues in the shadows, the high court has begun calling for special argument sessions so they can make a more informed ruling.

Oral argument on Trump’s birthright citizenship appeal will be held May 15, with a ruling likely in the following weeks.

Trump’s use of executive authority to unilaterally end birthright citizenship has been widely criticized by legal scholars, but instead of focusing his appeal on the legality of his order, Trump used his emergency appeal to attack supposed overreach by lower court judges.

The White House said it has been unfairly targeted by judges who dislike Trump and pushed the justices to send a message to limit judicial overreach.

Democratic states and immigrant advocates claim Trump is running away from his weak argument to end birthright citizenship. They say the right is at the core of the nation’s foundational precept, giving all people born on U.S. soil equal rights regardless of their parentage.

“The order conflicts with the bedrock principle that ours is ‘a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,’" CASA, an advocacy group, wrote.

Trump wants to narrow birthright citizenship to people born to at least one parent who is already a U.S. citizen — a move the states claim will affect hundreds of thousands of children nationwide.

A Seattle judge blocked the policy in a lawsuit from Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, Washington state and two individuals. Two more judges from Maryland and Massachusetts subsequently issued nationwide pauses on behalf of pregnant mothers, immigrant rights groups, New Jersey, 17 other states, the District of Columbia and San Francisco.

Trump proposed restricting the injunctions to the plaintiffs suing the administration.

“​​Whatever this court’s views of the lawfulness of the citizenship order, universal injunctions are plainly inappropriate means of redressing any harms to respondents,” Trump wrote in his emergency appeal.

Washington state said Trump’s patchwork solution would jeopardize some newborns’ citizenship. CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project represent over 800,000 members across all 50 states. The groups said universal relief was the only solution that protected all of their members.

Birthright citizenship was enacted to repudiate Dred Scott v. Sandford , the infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision that legalized slavery and denied the legality of Black citizenship. After the Civil War, however, the 14th Amendment declared that “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.”

Despite widespread consensus, the Trump administration adopted a novel reading of the right, arguing that people in the country illegally or temporarily are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S.

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