Birthright citizenship goes to the Supreme Court

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🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

President Trump's order that would end automatic citizenship for the children of many categories of immigrants has been blocked from going into effect by three separate federal judges. Those injunctions have been upheld by three separate appeals courts.

So Thursday's case at the Supreme Court was really about two questions: Whether the constitution guarantees birthright citizenship and whether judges can issue nationwide injunctions against federal policies.

University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, author of the book You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers, followed the arguments and breaks down clues that point to the Justices' thinking.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	President Trump has been thinking about birthright citizenship for a long time.
0:04.0	He debated Bill O'Reilly about it during a Fox News interview back in 2015 early in his first presidential campaign.
0:11.0	And O'Reilly brought up an obvious hurdle, the 14th Amendment.
0:15.0	Because the 14th Amendment says if you're born here, you're an American and you can't kick Americans out.
0:20.0	Birthright citizenship is constitutionally guaranteed.
0:24.0	To most legal scholars, it's a settled issue.
0:27.1	Trump disagreed.
0:28.1	Bill, I think you're wrong about the 14th Amendment.
0:30.9	He argued that the kids of non-citizens who traveled to the U.S. to give birth
0:34.6	did not have the constitutional right to American citizenship. O'Reilly pushed back forcefully. I can quote it you want to be U.S. to give birth did not have the constitutional right to American citizenship.
0:38.3	O'Reilly pushed back forcefully.
0:40.6	I can quote it. You want me to quote you in the amendment? If you're born here, you're an American.
0:45.5	Period. Period. Period. But there are many lawyers, many lawyers are saying that's not the way it is.
0:51.7	O'Reilly said you'd have to get the Constitution amended.
0:54.8	Trump said he'd rather test the idea in court. So file a suit, O'Reilly said.
1:00.0	We're going to test it out. That's going to happen, Bill.
1:04.4	A decade later, the question is before the Supreme Court.
1:08.6	This next order relates to the definition of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment
1:12.9	of the United States.
1:13.8	On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order blocking automatic
1:18.4	citizenship to the children of immigrants who are not legal permanent residents.
1:22.3	That's a good one.
	...

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