SC casts doubt on Trump’s bid to limit birthright citizenship

Washington: The Supreme Court is casting doubt on US President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship in a consequential case that was magnified by Trump’s unparalleled presence in the courtroom.

Conservative and liberal justices on Wednesday questioned if Trump’s order declaring children born to parents who are in the US illegally or temporarily are not American citizens comports with either the Constitution or federal law.

Trump, the first sitting president to attend arguments at the nation’s highest court, spent just over an hour inside the courtroom for arguments by the Republican administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General D John Sauer. The president departed shortly after lawyer Cecillia Wang began her presentation in defence of broad birthright citizenship. Trump heard Sauer face one sceptical question after another. Justices asked about the legal basis for the order and voiced more practical concerns.

“Is this happening in the delivery room?” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, drilling down into the logistics of how the government would actually figure out who’s entitled to citizenship and who’s not. Justice Clarence Thomas sounded the most likely among the nine justices to side with Trump.

“How much of the debates around the 14th Amendment had anything to do with immigration?” Thomas asked, pointing out that the purpose of the amendment was to grant citizenship to Black people, including freed slaves.

The justices are hearing Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them. They have not taken effect anywhere in the country.

The case frames another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court that has largely ruled in the president’s favour — but with some notable exceptions that Trump has responded to with starkly personal criticisms of the justices. A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown. —AP