'No reason to depart': Chief justice makes quick work of Trump's 'dramatically revisionist,' evidence-free attempt to end birthright citizenship

Chief Justice John Roberts, evidently not intimidated by Donald Trump's claims that declining to extremity birthright citizenship would beryllium a pro-China move, sided against the president connected Tuesday, rejecting a "dramatically revisionist view" for which determination was "scant evidence" of support.

Roberts, joined by Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, answered Tuesday that it was the Trump medication that reached the incorrect decision successful the lawsuit Trump v. Barbara.

After all, the main justness wrote, the full intent of the 14th Amendment was to "repudiate Dred Scott," the "odious decision" that made "blood, not soil," the "rule" for citizenship and excluded descendants of slaves.

"Chief Justice Taney, penning for the Court, concluded that 'the words 'people of the United States' and 'citizen[s]' had an unexpressed (and atextual) radical component—one that excluded each those descended from slaves," Roberts explained. "They were 'born successful the country,' Chief Justice Taney acknowledged, and frankincense 'did beryllium allegiance to the Government'—the precise criteria for citizenship astatine communal law. But they were 'not included, and were not intended to beryllium included, nether the connection 'citizens' successful the Constitution."

"Dred Scott was met with shock," Roberts went on.

Next, Roberts turned to the 1898 lawsuit of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which interpreted the citizenship clause to "include children of overseas nationals without respect to parental domicile."

Wong, the lad of Chinese immigrants with "permanent domicil and residence," was barred from reentering the U.S. nether the Chinese Exclusion Act contempt having been calved successful California. Ultimately, the Supreme Court affirmed that Wong was an American national nether the 14th Amendment.

"We spot nary crushed to depart from that presumption today," Roberts' bulk said, portion besides criticizing the Trump administration's "dramatically revisionist view" of domicile-based "allegiance."

"The lone grounds the Government and the main dissent tin muster to amusement that immoderate alternate ('primary') conception of allegiance displaced the communal instrumentality is simply a 'funeral oration' for President Lincoln," Roberts said. "Ahistorical modifiers aside, the Government and the dissent place nary root that defined allegiance astatine commencement arsenic being based connected domicile successful the play from 1776 to 1868."

Under the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, "[a]ll persons calved oregon naturalized successful the United States and taxable to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," except the children of overseas diplomats. The Trump medication had maintained birthright citizenship created an "incentive" for amerciable immigration, and anterior to oral arguments, Trump predicted that the Supreme Court would "find a mode to travel to the incorrect conclusion."

Upon Trump's inauguration past year, helium issued an executive bid claiming to protect the "meaning and worth of American citizenship."

"It is the argumentation of the United States that nary section oregon bureau of the United States authorities shall contented documents recognizing United States citizenship, oregon judge documents issued by State, local, oregon different governments oregon authorities purporting to admit United States citizenship, to persons: (1) erstwhile that person's parent was unlawfully contiguous successful the United States and the person's begetter was not a United States national oregon lawful imperishable nonmigratory astatine the clip of said person's birth, oregon (2) erstwhile that person's mother's beingness successful the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person's begetter was not a United States national oregon lawful imperishable nonmigratory astatine the clip of said person's birth," the bid said.

During oral arguments, the main justness had an exchange with U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer that proved to beryllium a motion of things to come. He straight asked the authorities for facts astir however large of a occupation "birth tourism" is successful reality.

"Do you person immoderate accusation astir however communal that it is oregon however important a occupation it is?" Roberts asked.

"No 1 knows for sure," Sauer answered, earlier adding, "But of course, we're successful a caller satellite now, arsenic Justice Alito pointed retired to you, wherever 8 cardinal radical are 1 level thrust distant from having a kid arsenic a U.S. citizen."

"Well, it's a caller world, but it's the aforesaid Constitution," Roberts answered.

On Tuesday, Roberts said helium "traced an unbroken enactment from the English communal law, into the founding and antebellum eras, and done the debates, to the Clause's ratification" and "[y]et astatine nary constituent did the Court place immoderate grounds successful the humanities grounds that the ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment thought themselves to beryllium imposing a domicile limitation."