WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Supreme Court heard argument’s relating to the President’s executive order trying to end birthright citizenship, which essentially gives American citizenship to people born on US soil. Experts said this case before our highest court could have a much bigger impact than just birthright citizenship.
A group of protesters rallied outside the Supreme Court in favor of keeping birthright citizenship. Within the first few days back in office, the President signed an executive order, trying to end birthright citizenship.
“The Trump administration has repeatedly been targeting America’s most vulnerable communities and right now he is doing it with an unprecedented attack on the 14th amendment on birthright citizenship,” said Riley, one of the protesters in favor of keeping birthright citizenship. “We know what he is doing. We know they are trying to facilitate more deportations and use this court case- if the Trump administration were to be successful, use it to strip more people of their citizenship and deport them.”
“People are concerned about their own citizenship,” said immigration attorney Elizabeth Ricci regarding the case.
Attorneys we spoke with said this case is much bigger than birthright citizenship, but whether lower-court judges can issue so-called nationwide, or universal, injunctions. It essentially blocks an order from the President from being carried out. In this case, several lower-court judges issued injunctions on the President’s birthright citizenship executive order.
“That’s a judges rule to determine constitutionality in the federal context,” said Ricci. “A judge can determine how the 14th Amendment is applied, can determine the constitutionality of an executive order, can interpret law. So, it is not inappropriate so I think the concern is what if we have a single judge in a single district for another issue that is another nationwide effect but that is the nature of our federal court system.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt going into this anybody actually thinks the ban on birthright citizenship the President signed in his executive order on the first day in office is at all constitutional,” said attorney Seth Kretzer with the Kretzer Firm. “This amendment was passed in the year 1868 and it’s kind of one you read about in the history books, the historical sections in law school studies course. The real issue is the government- that is the Trump administration- wants to argument on is to try to shut down these nationwide injunctions.”
Kretzer adds a lot of people thought this case would be the nail that drives the stake through the heart of nationwide injunctions.
“I heard Justice Thomas say today we managed to survive as a nation all the way until the 1960s without nationwide injunctions,” said Kretzer. “And yet I don’t know if General Sauer (Solicitor General D. John Sauer) really nailed that because I think it was (Justice) Barrett who keep hitting him with: ‘would you abide by the second circuit?’ And he kept like: ‘maybe.’ There’s no maybe. It’s would you or wouldn’t you. We have this whole idea of this [inaudible] maybe that we will abide by most of the time, and that just stands to suggest we need a nationwide standard here.”
Kretzer also adds that the federal judges have become the front line battle for the President’s agenda.
“The only one of the three branches that seems to be saying ‘no you cannot do this’ – whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing – the only one that is doing that right now is the judiciary and we all know those orders are not self-executing,” said Kretzer. “President Jackson famously said ‘the Supreme Court issued its ruling, now let them go and enforce it.’ So, that is the front-line battle. The fact that the Solicitor General stood up today and said we’re not necessarily going to abide even by individualized injunctions strikes as very scary for a lot of people.”
We expect the Court to issue their ruling on this in the near future.