I wonder if birthright citizenship ends for the United States tomorrow.
I don’t think it will. The question right now is about whether SCOTUS should stay the nationwide injunction(s) except regarding the individual plaintiffs and residents of the states that sued. I listened to the arguments and I think they will decide only that issue - most of their questions had to do with the issues when babies born in State A are citizens because there’s an injunction but they move to State B which isn’t covered by an injunction and similar logistical problems when some babies born of undocumented people are citizens and others not.
If they kick the can down the road and wait for the actual case to get to them, they may never have to decide the question of birthright citizenship itself.
SCOTUS punts - on birthright citizenship. They do side with government that the district court can’t issue a universal (country wide) injunction.
There are a lot of unanswered questions
(example:
Court does not address the weighty issue whether the state plaintiffs have third-party standing to assert the Citizenship Clause claims of their individual residents.
Brian
I’m not surprised at all. It was a lousy case to have to be the one for whether or not a lower court can issue a nationwide injunction. I figured they’d find some way to punt, maybe saying that the EO was invalid while stopping such injunctions or something. Sounds like it’s unfortunately not that.
Isn’t that actually a massive deal all by itself?
I get that this doesn’t touch the power of the Supreme Court itself, but it still seems odd for the court to be so eager to weaken the power of the judicial branch.
Maybe they want to force a conflict between districts and circuits so that when it gets back to them, and it will, they can have more material from where to assemble the Big Ruling.
It is going to be a big mess, with lots of activity in every district.
Brian
Being A subject is not the same as being subject to the jurisdiction. Americans are citizens, not subjects.
You’re assuming that they would be consistent. There is no basis for this assumption. The current administration would have no difficulty with stating that a particular person is not subject to the jurisdiction of the US in one breath, and then saying that they are in the next.
This signals that birthright citizenship is all but dead.
I guess the next fight is to prevent the government from stripping the existing citizenship from children of immigrants who can’t prove they were born in the US.
You might be right - but I think if this bunch had already decided that’s what they’re going to do , they just would have done it now. I think most of them just want to avoid making a decision on the merits at all - anything can happen between now and when the actual case gets to them. It could take years, long enough for lots of changes.
It will absolutely be a mess in the meantime.
Total mess, since some children born in some states will be citizens and others won’t be. And, if they later win and can become citizens, they may no longer even be in the country.
The de facto situation is that it’s effectively gone in 30 days. A mess gives ICE and this administration all it needs to end it. Brown children born in the United States will need to prove their parents are citizens from now on, and risk immediate deportation if they can’t do it on the spot.
This is my question… does this mean that whether or not you’re a citizen depends on which state you were born in? On which state you were abducted by the government in?
Seemingly so. The judge in question put an injunction on the EO, so I imagine if you’re born in that judge’s jurisdiction, you’re a citizen. Outside of that area, I guess you’re not until you sue?
It’s not at all clear to me. And, if the SCOTUS ultimately rules with the administration (which is the way I would bet), do you lose your citizenship? Do all children born to non-citizen parents lose their citizenship, or just those born after the EO or the SCOTUS ruling (if they rule that way)?
I’m curious if anyone with more historical context can shed some light on this… it seems like the exact reason why a lower court can impact federal law in this way is to avoid this exact nightmare scenario- where federal law applies differently depending on where you are. While this might be a “win” for the current administration insofar as they can do more deporting, it seems like in an odd way it’s a dismantling of the power of the federal government, in that it ceases to be universal.
The executive order was to take effect on a certain date and only apply to persons born after that date . It also , strangely does not say they will not be citizens, only that Federal agencies are not to issue documents such as passports or accept documents from states that purport to recognize US citizenship. I don’t understand the reason for that.
CASA is apparently already amending their lawsuit to a class action covering all pregnant women and children without legal status
A related aside:
Saw this in a recent Status Kuo article on Substack – lawyers suing the federal government to contest Trump administration actions have learned to broaden complaints as much as possible. Don’t sue one federal agency – sue 50 of them. Don’t sue for one person – make it a class action.
Otherwise, it leaves too much wiggle room for bad actors to keep acting bad.
Yeah - not at all unusual for them to punt on what is seemingly the main issue. But then THIS COURT goes out of its way to rule broadly on a nonessential - yet arguably more significant - issue.