Overview
- The Supreme Court granted review in Barbara v. United States, taking the dispute before a lower-court ruling is final.
- Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order seeks to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to immigrants without legal authorization or present only temporarily.
- Lower federal courts have largely blocked enforcement, though a Supreme Court order in June allowed the policy to take effect in states that did not sue.
- Solicitor General D. John Sauer argues the 14th Amendment was intended to secure citizenship for freed slaves and not to confer it on children of immigrants without lawful status.
- The ACLU says the order contradicts the Constitution and an 1898 Supreme Court precedent and predicts the justices will preserve birthright citizenship.