{"id":851,"date":"2026-06-30T19:39:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=851"},"modified":"2026-06-30T19:39:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:39:01","slug":"the-supreme-court-upholds-birthright-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=851","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Supreme Court<\/span> affirmed on Tuesday that that birthright citizenship is the law of the land. The decision, by Chief Justice John Roberts, upholds the clear meaning of the Constitution and knocks down the Trump administration\u2019s attempt to deny citizenship to thousands of newborns every year. It\u2019s no exaggeration to say that the case was a test of whether this would remain a nation where everyone is born on equal legal footing, or whether the country would revert to a caste system in which one\u2019s place in society is determined by the status of one\u2019s parents. Andthe decision was scandalously close.<\/p>

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\u201cCitizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights\u2014to freely participate in our political community,\u201d Roberts wrote in his 5-4 majority . \u201cThe Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to \u2018every free-born person in this land.\u2019 We keep that promise today.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Roberts\u2019 sweeping ruling commanded only a bare 5-4 majority on the meaning of the Constitution\u2019s citizenship clause. Justice Brett Kavanaugh would have struck down Trump\u2019s executive order based on Congress\u2019 previous codification of birthright citizenship, but does not believe it is required by the Constitution. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented. Thatmath is too close for comfort.<\/p>\n

Court-watchers generally expected an overwhelming rebuke for Trump in this case, with perhaps one or two dissenters. Instead, birthright citizenship\u2014and with it the promise of a casteless society of equals\u2014hangs by a thread. To be clear, if one Democratic appointee leaves the court while Trump or another Republican is president, the promise of equality for all under the law may fall.<\/p>\n

On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to deny birthright citizenship to the children of temporary visitors and undocumented people, claiming that such a policy is the proper interpretation of the citizenship clause. Butthe first sentence of the 14th Amendment, added to the Constitution after the Civil War, states: \u201cAll 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.\u201d The only exceptions, carved into the jurisdiction requirement, are the children of ambassadors, invading armies, and, at the time, American Indians under tribal authority. Today\u2019s decision upholds this long-held understanding of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time the court has ruled that the citizenship clause means what it says. In a landmark decision in 1898, United States v. Wong Kim Ark<\/em>, the court found that birthright citizenship is the rule for virtually everyone born in the United States. Today\u2019s court upheld all of Wong Kim Ark<\/em>. \u201cWe see no reason to depart from that view today,\u201d Roberts wrote. While the decision is a rebuke of Trump, the majority didn\u2019t need to take this case in order to shut down Trump\u2019s executive order\u2014as the majority acknowledged today, it was already unconstitutional under the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment and Wong Kim Ark. <\/em>Today\u2019s ruling, Trump v. Barbara,<\/em> didn\u2019t change that. Some may nonetheless credit the court for striking down Trump\u2019s order and point to it as evidence that the court is not overly obsequious to the president\u2014though it has used recent terms to grant him vast new powers and reserved rebukes for rare occasions. But this case is too close to give the court any credit\u2014instead, it portends a dark future, despite Roberts\u2019 fulsome defense of birthright citizenship.<\/p>\n