The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in January over President Trump and his executive order on birthright citizenship, which seeks to end citizenship of children born to illegal aliens.
An amicus brief from the Federation for American Immigration Reform is urging the court to study the Citizenship Clause in the 14th Amendment and the issue of a foreigner’s legal status. Trump has argued the Citizenship Clause makes it clear the parents of children born on U.S. soil must be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States government.
Two lower courts have ruled against him, setting up a possible landmark ruling next summer.
FAIR was joined by the Landmark Legal Foundation in the brief.
Ira Mehlman, media director at FAIR, tells AFN the citizenship clause and its reference to U.S. jurisdiction is a key portion of the famous amendment, adopted in 1868, that addressed the citizenship of freed slaves after the Civil War.
“’Subject to the jurisdiction’ is an important point there,” Mehlman argues. “If they had just meant that anybody born on U.S. soil was automatically a U.S. citizen, they wouldn't have put that clause in there.”
Mehlman gives the example of foreigners who obey U.S. traffic laws, such as stopping at a red light, but the more important issue is if they have an allegiance to the United States or to the foreign country they came from.
The legal issue is further complicated by a second 19th century ruling. Back in 1898, the high court ruled on behalf of a Chinese-American, Wong Kim Ark, who was born to Chinese parents in California.
According to FAIR’s court brief, the Ark ruling helps Trump’s legal argument. That ruling held that a person born on U.S. soil must be born to parents who have legal permission to live here, FAIR argues in its brief.
"We have seen, over the past several decades, huge numbers of people coming into the country illegally," Mehlman points out. "They're having children who were born here, even birth tourists who are coming here to have children in the United States. Clearly, this was an abuse."
