President ties constitutional debate to upcoming high court review of executive order limiting automatic citizenship.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump said Monday that birthright citizenship was originally intended to apply to formerly enslaved people and their descendants, not to children born in the United States to temporary visitors or noncitizens, as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in a case challenging his policy.
The comments come ahead of oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, scheduled for April 1, which will examine the constitutionality of Executive Order 14160. The order seeks to deny automatic U.S. citizenship at birth to children of illegal immigrants and certain temporary visa holders and has been blocked by lower courts.
In a social media post, Trump said, “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America,” adding, “It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!”
The administration’s legal position in the case argues that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, was intended to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved individuals and their children, rather than to extend automatic citizenship to all individuals born on U.S. soil regardless of parental status.
The clause states 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.” Since the Supreme Court’s 1898 ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the federal government has generally interpreted this provision to confer citizenship to nearly all individuals born in the country.
Trump also referenced concerns about birth tourism and surrogacy arrangements involving foreign nationals, particularly from China, suggesting such practices have implications for national security.
“The World is getting rich selling citizenship to our Country, while at the same time laughing at how STUPID our U.S. Court System has become (TARIFFS!),” Trump wrote, later adding, “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!”
The remarks come weeks after the Supreme Court issued a separate ruling striking down a number of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In that decision, the Court found that the statute did not clearly authorize the use of tariffs under the emergency powers invoked by the administration.
The outcome of Trump v. Barbara could have significant implications for how the 14th Amendment is interpreted and applied, particularly regarding the scope of automatic citizenship in the United States.
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