Trump Demands Congress Overturn Birthright Citizenship ‘TODAY’ After Supreme Court Loss

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

President Donald Trump reacted to the Supreme Court striking down his executive order on birthright citizenship Tuesday, calling it “too bad for our Country” and demanding that Congress take action “TODAY” to pass legislation to accomplish what he wanted.

Trump’s executive order was issued on the first day of his second term and purported to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants or those who were in the country temporarily. In Tuesday’s opinion in Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court held that the executive order violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s language, which did grant citizenship to those born in the United States. The text of the amendment is as follows:

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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented in part. Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Sonya Sotomayor,  Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Jackson Brown joined the majority and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Kavanaugh’s dissent argued that Trump’s executive order did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment but did violate the federal statute that codified that constitutional amendment:

The Court today holds that the Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. I respectfully disagree with the Court’s constitutional holding. In my view, the Executive Order does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Order does contravene a federal statute, 8 U. S. C. §1401(a). Congress could—consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment—amend §1401(a) or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country. But Congress has not yet done so.

Trump seemed to seize on Kavanaugh’s take on the legal issue in a Truth Social post Tuesday afternoon.  The full text of his post read:

The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process. No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support! President DONALD J. TRUMP

The president has falsely claimed that the United States is the only country to grant birthright citizenship. CNN fact checker Daniel Dale has debunked this repeatedly, noting “[a]bout three dozen countries provide automatic citizenship to people born on their soil, including Canada, Mexico and the majority of South American countries.”

This is a breaking news story and has been updated with additional content.

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