The US Supreme Court overturns Trump’s order that ended birthright citizenship

The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned President Donald Trump’s decree to end birthright citizenship, a blow to a measure issued on the first day of his second term.

The court has ruled in this way, after six of its members – compared to three – have considered the president’s order illegal, five of them alleging that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, while the sixth judge for violating federal law and not the Magna Carta.

“Citizenship, both then and now, was the right to have rights: to participate freely in our political community. The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every person born free in this land’. Today we maintain that promise,” the high court defended in its brief.

The Supreme Court has also considered that there was “little evidence” in favor of the Trump Administration’s reinterpretation of a rule – the Fourteenth Amendment – that stipulates that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens of the United States.”

The White House tenant’s directive sought to deny US citizenship to minors born to mothers who are in the country in an irregular situation or with temporary visas, and whose parents are not citizens or legal residents, which, if carried out, could affect some 250,000 babies born in the country each year, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the Demographic Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.

The highest court of Justice of the United States has ratified the right to citizenship by birth on several occasions, while Congress also approved – even before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 – a federal law that provides this right to those born on American soil.