Supreme Court strikes down Trump birthright citizenship order in blow to president

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court smacked down President Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants and tourists, quashing a marquee policy of his for the second time in six months.Trump’s day one order had been in limbo amid a legal battle over whether it violated the 14th Amendment, which states: “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.”The subsequent Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 clarified that birthright citizenship is automatically granted to “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”Trump became the first-ever sitting US president to attend Supreme Court oral arguments when the justices heard the case April 1.The administration had not been expected to prevail, with experts expressing skepticism that Trump could unilaterally restrict the definition of birthright citizenship via executive order.A key precedent is the 1898 US v.

Wong Kim Ark case, which dealt with a dispute over the status of a man born to Chinese immigrants who were in America legally but barred from being US citizens due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.Ultimately, the Supreme Court sided with Wong and ruled that almost all native born children in the US automatically become citizens unless they are the offspring of occupying hostile forces, foreign rulers or diplomats, or born on foreign ships in US ports.During oral arguments, Solicitor General John Sauer pointed out that the Wong Kim Ark case dealt with legal, domiciled immigrants rather than illegal aliens.Sauer further argued that levels of illegal immigration were much lower in the 1800s, making the current case a national security matter under the president’s purview.Last year, the Supreme Court narrowed the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions blocking presidential actions from taki...