– Sam Corum/PA Wire/DPA
Madrid, December 6 (European Press) –
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to rule on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the Constitution since the 19th century.
The Supreme Court justices, most of whom are conservative, are expected to decide in June after hearing arguments from the parties whether Trump’s order, which was issued the same day he took office, is constitutional, according to CNN.
The Fourteenth Amendment states: “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.” This right was strengthened in 1898 thanks to the case of Wong Kim Ark, the son of Chinese immigrants who was banned from entering the country under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
The Trump administration has promoted a restrictive interpretation of the phrase “subject to jurisdiction” with the aim of limiting this right to children of immigrants in an irregular situation, arguing that the parents are not loyal to the United States because they were born in a foreign country.
ACLU Legal Director Cecilia Wang stated that “no president can change” the Fourteenth Amendment, referring to the fact that the Constitution can only be amended if changes are approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states.
“The federal courts unanimously ruled that President Trump’s executive order conflicts with the Constitution, the 1898 Supreme Court decision, and the law enacted by Congress,” Wang said in a statement.
Unlike the overturned Roe v. Wade ruling, which protected the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, birthright citizenship currently enjoys broad legal consensus and has not had a history of jurisdictional disputes, in part due to the clarity of the language of the aforementioned amendment.