Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order Draws Lines Scholars Find Indefensible

Trump birthright order: Scholars slam end to citizenship by soil

Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday ending automatic U.S. citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants born on American soil.

Constitutional-law professors across the political spectrum called the directive legally doomed because the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to “all persons born” in the United States.

The order revokes a 126-year-old practice that has granted passports to millions and tees up the most direct Supreme Court test of birthright citizenship since 1898. If upheld, it would create a new federal bureaucracy to determine parental status before issuing Social Security numbers and could strand hundreds of thousands of newborns in legal limbo each year.

“It’s an attack on the plain text,” Stanford professor Michael McConnell, a George W. Bush appointee, told reporters inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. “You don’t need a law degree to read clause one.”

The White House dismissed such objections. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president “is fulfilling his promise to put Americans first” and predicted the Supreme Court will “restore sanity to immigration law.”

Trump’s order takes effect in 30 days. It directs federal agencies to deny passports and Social Security cards to children born to mothers who lack legal status or a valid visa. Pregnant travelers whose home governments refuse a new “consular attestation” form would also see their newborns rejected.

Aides expect 6% of the 3.7 million babies delivered annually in U.S. hospitals to fall under the ban, according to internal Homeland Security figures released Tuesday. That equals roughly 222,000 infants per year.

Conservative icon Edwin Meese joined liberal scholar Laurence Tribe in signing a joint statement labeling the order “indefensible under any good-faith reading of the Constitution.” The pair urged state officials to ignore instructions until courts rule.

California Governor Gavin Newsom complied within hours. He instructed hospitals across the nation’s most populous state to continue issuing standard birth certificates listing all newborns as U.S. citizens. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed the opposite, filing a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Trump before any case reached a judge.

Seventeen other Republican state attorneys general joined Paxton. Their brief argues that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the 14th Amendment’s overlooked qualifier, excludes people without legal permission to be in the country.

Opponents counter with United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 decision that affirmed citizenship for a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were themselves barred from naturalization. The Supreme Court at the time ruled the clause “affords citizenship to all children here born of resident aliens.”

Monday’s order marks the second time Trump has targeted birthright citizenship. A similar 2020 directive died when courts refused to lift injunctions before Election Day. Back then, Republican-controlled states stayed on the sidelines. Their participation this round increases the odds of a Supreme Court appeal, according to University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck.

The Justice Department assigned at least 25 attorneys to the defense team, officials told reporters. They concede privately the case hinges on whether the current 6-3 conservative majority is willing to overturn Wong Kim Ark, a possibility several justices have hinted at in immigration dissents.

Background

Congress wrote the citizenship clause into the Constitution after the Civil War to override the 1857 Dred Scott decision that denied rights to Black Americans. Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan, author of the amendment, declared on the Senate floor it would cover “every person born within the limits of the United States, whether their parents be white or black, strangers or citizens.”

For most of the 20th century, the provision went unchallenged in partisan debate. Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush defended birthright citizenship as a cornerstone of national identity. The shift began in 1993, when Senator Harry Reid, at the time a Democrat facing re-election in Nevada, proposed ending the policy. Reid later apologized, calling the bill “the low point of my career,” but restrictionist groups kept pushing the idea in state legislatures and GOP platforms.

What’s Next

Lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and Democratic state coalitions are expected to land in federal district courts Wednesday. Legal aides said they will seek nationwide injunctions, meaning the policy could freeze within weeks. Appeals would move quickly toward the Supreme Court, which usually releases major decisions by late June.

Even if blocked, Trump’s order forces hospitals and state vital-records offices to plan for a bureaucratic overhaul during peak birth season. Observers say parents who lack paperwork may simply avoid prenatal care, leading to riskier deliveries and larger long-term costs for emergency Medicaid programs already stretched across rural America.

META: Trump’s executive order canceling birth citizenship propels a landmark constitutional fight that could reshape U.S. identity and immigration practice for generations.
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CATEGORY: US Politics