Justices Take Key Immigration Case on Trump Order Limiting Birthright Citizenship

By Jack Birle | The Washington Examiner

The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear arguments in a case challenging President Donald Trump‘s executive order on birthright citizenship later this term.

In an order released Friday afternoon, the justices said they would take up for review Trump v. Barbara, a case originally brought in a federal court in New Hampshire by a group of people whose children could be affected by the order. The Justice Department filed petitions to the high court to hear the Barbara case and Trump v. Washington, a challenge brought by Democrat-led states, in September, arguing the justices should rule on the legality of the order.

“The government has a compelling interest in ensuring that American citizenship — the privilege that allows us to choose our political leaders — is granted only to those who are lawfully entitled to it,” the DOJ’s petition to the high court reads.

“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the President and his Administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” the filing continues. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”

According to Trump’s January executive order, birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment does not include children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis, such as on a visa. The order has been rejected at various federal district and appeals courts across the country, with various injunctions preventing the order from taking effect since the president signed it.

The high court has been presented with the question of “whether the Executive Order complies on its face with the citizenship clause” of the Constitution.

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