As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday on whether the Trump administration can take steps to end birthright citizenship, protesters rallied outside the court in defense of the Constitution.
“Born here? You’re a citizen, period,” one sign held by a demonstrator said. “Defend the Constitution” and “American-born children are American children,” one participants’ signs said.
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WATCH HERESupreme Court justices heard arguments in a case that stems from the executive order President Donald Trump issued on his first day in office that would deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.
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SIGN UP The executive order marks a major change to the provision of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to people born in the United States, with just a couple of exceptions.
Immigrants, rights groups and states sued almost immediately to challenge the executive order. Federal judges have uniformly cast doubt on Trump’s reading of the Citizenship Clause. Three judges have blocked the order from taking effect anywhere in the U.S.
At the demonstration, attorney Andrea Flores of the bipartisan immigration reform organization FWD.us spoke about impacts if the court rules in Trump’s favor.
“The administration wants to argue this is just about the unauthorized population. It isn’t. It’s about people who are here on temporary protected status who cannot go home. It’s about a Venezuelan asylum seeker who has a child. There’s no embassy or consulate that they could go to to ask the Venezuelan government to give their child citizenship. And then if the United States denies their child citizenship, they are stateless,” she said.
The Supreme Court took up emergency appeals filed by the Trump administration asking to be able to enforce the executive order in most of the country, at least while lawsuits over the order proceed. The constitutionality of the order is not before the court just yet. Instead, the justices are looking at potentially limiting the authority of individual judges to issue rulings that apply throughout the U.S. These are known as nationwide, or universal, injunctions.
The Trump administration argues nationwide injunctions overstep judicial authority and hinder the executive branch’s ability to enforce policies.
