The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is scheduled to hear oral arguments over President Donald Trump’s recent executive order exempting illegal immigrants from birthright citizenship rights.
President Trump’s executive order symbolizes the zenith of an underlying legal and political debate over the meaning of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and the United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision.
In relevant part, the 14th Amendment declares that “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 debate over the 14th Amendment’s meaning sprouts from the words “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Supporters of Trump’s executive order claim illegal aliens were never meant to be covered by the 14th Amendment because they remain legally subject to their home country’s jurisdiction.
As such, some conservative scholars argue that the executive branch, which is authorized to issue passports and regulate citizenship proceedings, has been erroneously granting citizenship to illegal immigrants.
Opponents of exempting illegal immigrants from birthright citizenship, however, claim that Ark applies the 14th Amendment’s naturalization provisions to all immigrants.
In Ark, SCOTUS found that legal immigrants to the US, insofar as they are not the children of foreign diplomats or foreign enemy soldiers, enjoy birthright citizenship.
SCOTUS declared that the “real object” of the 14th Amendment is to “exclude…children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State.”
However, Ark was subsequently interpreted to extend birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, which has been the practice of the US government since the late 1800s.
Yet, Ark’s concession that some classes of immigrants are exempt from birthright citizenship has stirred debate over whether illegal immigrants fall under such a class.
While SCOTUS will hear arguments on birthright citizenship next Thursday, it remains unclear whether they will decide if illegal immigrants are entitled to birthright citizenship or eschew doing so until a later time.
