WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed intent Thursday on keeping a block on President Donald Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship while looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders.
People are also reading…
How US birthright citizenship emerged, endured
THE 14TH AMENDMENT
FILE - In this May 13, 2004, file photo, Jose Aguilar, and his wife, Maria, read a book with their children Jose Jr.,7, and Jennifer, 9, at their home in National City, Calif. The Aguilar children are U.S. citizens by virtue of their American birth, but their parents face deportation back to their homeland of Mexico. U.S. citizenship through birth comes via the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to secure U.S. citizenship for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on U.S. soil after court challenges. (AP Photo/Sandy Huffaker, File)
President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants to end a constitutional right that automatically grants citizenship to any baby born in the United States. Trump, in an interview with "Axios on HBO," said his goal is halting guaranteed citizenship for babies of noncitizens and unauthorized immigrants.
U.S. citizenship through birth comes via the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to secure U.S. citizenship for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on U.S. soil after court challenges.
FIGHT FOR CITIZENSHIP
FILE - This March 9, 2012, file photo shows a photograph of Miguel Trujillo of Isleta Pueblo, N.M., and his daughter on display for an exhibit at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, N.M. Trujillo fought in 1948 for the right of American Indians to vote in New Mexico and came decades after the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants all people born in the U.S. citizenship. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)
Despite the Citizenship Clause and equal protections afforded under the 14th Amendment, Native Americans were consistently denied the benefits of U.S. birthright citizenship and it took decades for them to receive full citizenship, according to the nonpartisan National Constitution Center.
Native Americans who remained under tribal structures were not considered in determining the number of representatives for states in Congress. And if Native Americans left tribal structures, they weren't eligible for naturalization under the general naturalization laws because only whites could become naturalized citizens, Rutgers University School of Law professor Earl M. Maltz told the National Constitution Center in a conversation about citizenship.
AN EXECUTIVE ORDER
FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2015 photo, in Sullivan City, Texas, a woman who is in the country illegally plays with her 2-year-old daughter who was born in the in the United States but was denied a birth certificate. Lawyers for immigrant families denied birth certificates for their U.S.-born children by Texas health officials who refuse to recognize as valid certain forms of identification will argue for a federal judge to intervene against the state. U.S. citizenship through birth comes via the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to secure U.S. citizenship for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on U.S. soil after court challenges. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center, says some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the 14th Amendment allows the U.S. to deny citizenship to babies born to those in the country illegally.
However, Hoffman said those arguments are false since any person in the U.S., besides diplomats, would be subject to U.S. laws regardless of immigration status.
