Washington DC [US], July 2: President Donald Trump suffered a defeat on Tuesday at the US Supreme Court in the dispute over birthright citizenship as the court, in a landmark ruling, said children born in the United States will continue to obtain citizenship automatically.
Trump had sought to remove birthright citizenship for the children of people in the US only temporarily or without the required authorization. Critics argued that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution does not allow that. It states that babies born on US soil are US citizens.
"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 text of the ruling read. The jus soli - Latin for "right of the soil" - has guaranteed automatic citizenship since 1868 for almost every child born on US territory. The Supreme Court justices have now confirmed this practice with their ruling.
The majority of the justices agreed. Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative and often a swing vote, wrote the main opinion and was joined by the court's liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett also signed on to the majority opinion - a move that is likely to irk her conservative critics.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, concurred in the judgment but dissented in part. Opposing the ruling were court conservatives Neil Gorsuch, also a Trump appointee, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas. Court watchers had anticipated that the justices would reject Trump's effort to alter the law, based on the hearing on the case in which many justices, including conservative ones, did not appear likely to back Trump's move to modify US citizenship laws.
At the beginning of his second term, Trump signed an order aimed at sharply restricting birthright citizenship and prohibiting children of parents in the US, only temporarily or without valid residence papers, from obtaining citizenship.
This was intended to stop babies of migrants without valid residency status, including those of asylum seekers, foreign students, tourists, or foreigners sent to the US by companies temporarily, from automatically receiving US citizenship. Trump also wanted to clamp down on "birth tourism" - people who travel to the US only to give birth there.
Source: Qatar Tribune
