The Supreme Court rendered two decisions that made Donald Trump happy:
One: states may ban transgender athletes from participating in sports.
Two: It struck down limits on political contributions.
But in its last decision, it overruled Trump’s hope to eliminate “birthright citizenship.” That is, the commitment that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, even if their parents are not.
The vote was 6-3. Three conservative justices joined the liberal bloc of three.
CNN reported:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday knocked down Donald Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship as it has been understood for more than a century, invalidating an executive order that was a key part of the president’s agenda even though it was legally dubious from the start.
The decision was nevertheless a significant loss for a president who ran for office in part on ending “birth tourism” and whose second term has been largely defined by its push to crack down on both illegal and legal immigration.
The court’s decision leaves in place the understanding that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, even if that child’s parents are not.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for a majority that included both conservatives and liberals. Three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — dissented from the decision.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote for the court. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
Birthright citizenship is explicit in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Section 1. 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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The Originalists on the Court chose to ignore the Constitution. They are Originalists when it suits their purpose, and they make it up out of thin air when it doesn’t.

It is stunning to me that this is even an issue with tRump. 4 of his 5 children are birthright citizens. Only Tiffany’s mother was a citizen when she was born. Neither Ivana OR Melania were citizens when their children were born here. The way he and Stephen Miller have framed this issue is that anyone that has a parent or parents that are not citizens, does not have citizenship from birth.
The way this court has continued to act, allowing the executive branch to have full and unfettered control of the government, with no repercussions, it is no surprise we are heading to a government that is no longer by the people and for the people.
Our SCOTUS is ruling and reframing the constitution to suit their own conservative beliefs under the guise of “traditionalists”.
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Trump’s children, except Tiffany, are “anchor babies.” Her parents were beneficiaries of “chain migration.”
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That last paragraph says it all. Strict construction is a straw man legal argument.
That there were three justices ready to throw out an amendment to the constitution is frightening
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The language of the 14th Amendment is clear.
The dissenters said it was intended only for ex-slaves and their families.
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No serious person believed any other decision was possible. I don’t think there’s clearer language in the Constitution than birthright citizenship, and if the Supreme Court had ruled that the Constitution doesn’t mean what it clearly says, we’re on a slippery slope to Neverland.
That it took like 200 pages to explain this is maybe more frightening to me than the opinion of three (actually, four) justices with a reading disability — what an embarrassment to our highest court.
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Paul,
I was happy that 5 justices agreed that the plain language of the 14th Amendment means what it says. I was upset to see that four did not agree.
But recall when Colorado’s court ruled that Trump could not run because the 14th amendment says that any person who participated in an insurrection could not run, the Sulreme Court decided that the words didn’t mean anything. He should have been disqualified.
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