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President Trump expressed confidence Thursday that his executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship will be deemed constitutional after the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case next month.
“I am so happy,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after being informed that the high court has scheduled oral arguments for May 15.
“I think the case has been so misunderstood,” the president argued. “Birthright citizenship is about slavery.”
“If you view it from that standpoint, people understand it.”
In a series of lawsuits filed by dozens of Democratic state attorneys general, immigrant rights groups and expectant mothers, plaintiffs have argued that Trump’s Day One executive order to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants violates a right enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
The Reconstruction amendment, ratified in 1868, during the post-Civil War era, includes a citizenship clause that states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The Trump administration contends that the birthright citizenship line is directly linked to slavery – and does not extend to immigrants who entered the country illegally or those in the US temporarily, such as individuals on student or work visas.
“It’s not about tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand, and all of a sudden they’re citizens … that is all about slavery,” Trump said of the 14th Amendment.
“Look at the dates on which it was signed,” the president continued. “It was right at that era, during – right after the Civil War – and if you look at it that way, the case is an easy case to win.”
Solicitor General John Sauer has argued that universal birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and “birth tourism.”
The Trump administration has also argued that an 1898 Supreme Court ruling long interpreted as guaranteeing children born in the US to a non-citizen parent American citizenship only applies to children whose parents had a “permanent domicile and residence in the United States.”
“I hope the lawyers talk about birthright citizenship and slavery, because that’s what it was all about,” Trump said. “And it was very positive – It was meant to be positive – and they use it now instead, not for slavery.”
“They use it for people that come into our country and they walk in and all of a sudden they become citizens, and they pay a lot of money to different cartels and others.”
“It’s all about slavery. And if you look at it that way, we should win that case,” the president declared.
In the Supreme Court’s unsigned order, the justices opted not to act on a request by the Trump administration to narrow the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges in Washington state, Massachusetts and Maryland that halted the president’s Jan. 20 order while litigation plays out.
