Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship

“We can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President,” Trump wrote.

- Andrea Castillo

The exchange suggests that the political fight over citizenship and “birth tourism” may continue despite the court’s verdict.

Cecillia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case at the Supreme Court, said the decision “reaffirms a fundamental American promise — if you are born here, you are a citizen. A president cannot change the Constitution by executive fiat.”

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the son of Mexican immigrants, said the fight over birthright citizenship was personal.

“While we celebrate this ruling today, we cannot rest,” he said, “Because this is certainly not the end of Trump's attacks on our Constitution, our democracy and the notion of what it means to be American.”

But Dale Wilcox, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors more restrictions, said the decision “makes it all the more urgent to step up enforcement to the maximum possible extent.”

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, says: “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 amendment overturned the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, which declared that Black people could not become U.S. citizens.