The United States Supreme Court heard the arguments on Thursday in a case contesting the efforts of the Trump administration to limit who obtains the citizenship of the birth law.
Andrew Harnik / Getty images
hide
tilting legend
Andrew Harnik / Getty images
The United States Supreme Court seemed to be at least partially divided on Thursday when the judges heard more than two hours of arguments debate the way in which the lower courts should manage the executive order of President Trump on the citizenship of the law of birth.
Special NPR coverage: the Supreme Court hears arguments in the case of citizenship of droit of birth
Don’t you see a reading button? Click here.
Trump has long argued that there is no citizenship of duty, but the Supreme Court judged otherwise 127 years ago. The court then declared, and since then, that the text of the fourteenth amendment, promulgated after the civil war, says that all babies born in the United States are automatically American citizens. Impossible, Trump on his first day of mandate this year published a decree declaring that the children of parents who enter the United States or on a temporary visa are not entitled to automatic citizenship.
Groups of immigrant rights and 22 states have continued, and three different judges from the federal district courts invalidated Trump’s order, issuing what are called universal injunctions that prohibited the administration from enforcing Trump’s policy anywhere in the country.
When the courts of appeal refused to intervene during litigation, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to completely block universal injunctions. The administration said that judges of a single district should not have such a broad authority. On Thursday, the court therefore heard the emergency arguments in the case.
The Conservatives of the Court did not fully tip their hands. While some of them called for the abolition of these injunctions on a national scale in the past, Thursday, they did not seem if some, especially after the solicitor general D. John Sauer opened his argument so that Trump is right to say that the fourteenth amendment has been wrongly interpreted for 127 years.
“This order reflects the original meaning of the fourteenth amendment, which guaranteed citizenship to the children of former slaves, and not to illegal foreigners or temporary visitors,” he said.
He then continued by saying that the judges who temporarily prohibited the application of Trump’s policy had exceeded their authority under the Constitution.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor asked this question: if a new president decided to seize all the country’s firearms, we should “sit down and wait for each applicant whose pistol is taken into account?”
Judge Elena Kagan followed, asking this question to save: “Let’s just assume that you are wrong. How do we get … a single rule of citizenship that we have historically applied, rather than the rule (Trump’s executive order) would make us do?”
When the solicitor General Sauer then covered if the administration is determined to comply with any court decision, judge Amy CONEY BARRETT has leaned forward: “Did I understand correctly to tell judge Kagan that the government wanted to reserve its right not to follow the opinion?”
In response, Sauer said: “There are circumstances where it is not a categorical practice.”
Other judges pushed sail further.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh asked a series of practical questions, such as: “What are hospitals do with a newborn? What are the states doing with a newborn?”
“Federal officials will have to understand this,” said Sauer, which prompted Kavanaugh to ask: “How?”
Sauer said the administration may require documentation showing that parents are legally in the country.
For all newborns? Asked Kavanaugh. Replied Sauer: “We just don’t know.”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson interrupted: “Your argument seems to transform our judicial system into a regime of capture me if you have to have a lawyer and bring legal action so that the government ceases to violate people’s rights.”
Sauer suggested that the litigants could make collective appeals, instead of individual prosecution, but lawyer Jeremy Feigenbaum, representing the States, replied: “This will produce unprecedented chaos on the ground.”
Judge Samuel Alito noted that there were 680 judges of the district court in the country, and if everyone could impose injunctions on a national scale which could also produce chaos. But in consideration, Alito did not seem satisfied with the concept of Sauer according to which collective remedies would be better.
“So the answer is that the practical problem would not be resolved,” said Alito, adding that if that is the case, “what is the interest of this argument on universal injunctions?”
Head judge John Roberts noted that there may be advantages to authorize the courts of appeal sufficiently enough to reign on the merits of a case before the question went to the Supreme Court, which, as he noted, can occur fairly quickly in emergency cases.
A decision in the case is expected at the start of the summer.
