US Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, striking down Trump order
The US Supreme Court affirmed the lower court and struck down an Executive Order, which Trump signed on his first day back in office. The order had declared that children born in the US to parents who are here illegally or only temporarily are not “subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, and therefore not citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court held the opposite: those children are subject to U.S. jurisdiction and are citizens at birth. Roberts’ reasoning walked through English common law.
The vote was 6-3. Kavanaugh concurred only in the result, arguing the order violates the statute rather than reaching the Constitution.
Alito wrote a dissent and called it one of the most important decisions in the Court’s history and a “serious mistake," and frames the majority rule as a magnet for “birth tourists." His textual position is that the Amendment confers citizenship only on children who at birth owe allegiance solely to this country. Notably, he goes out of his way to say striking the order down his way would not require uprooting the millions of children already born here — Congress could address them — so the humane outcome and his reading aren’t in conflict.
In another notable decision, The Court
on erased limits on how much political parties can spend in
coordination with candidates for Congress and president, striking down a
federal election law that’s more than 50 years old and reversing a 2001 Supreme Court decision.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.