Vice President JD Vance argued Tuesday that there is a “big silver lining” in the divided Supreme Court ruling striking down President Trump’s executive order outlawing birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants and tourists.
“I know a lot of conservatives, Laura, certainly the people that I’m talking to, that you’re talking to, are extremely disappointed in this, but I do actually think there’s a really big silver lining here, and that’s the simple fact that a lot of legal experts expected this case to go the wrong direction by seven to two, or even eight to one,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
“The fact that this case was a 5-to-4 decision effectively means that the concept of birthright citizenship, which is an absurdity to the 14th Amendment, that concept is hanging by a thread,” the vice president argued during his appearance on “The Ingraham Angle.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Amy Coney Barrett were joined in the majority by liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. The majority ruled that Trump’s order violated the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship guarantee.
A sixth justice, Brett Kavanaugh, found that the order did not violate the 14th Amendment, but did violate federal law from the 1940s and 1950s.
“What I take from [the ruling] is, yes, we’ve got to fix the immigration system even more, we have to be even more aware of who’s coming into our country to make sure that they’re not benefiting from this atrocious Supreme Court ruling,” Vance said, adding, “but it also means that we have to keep fighting … because we actually have an opportunity to reverse this decision.”
The vice president further argued that the high court’s “major, major mistake” might invite pregnant foreign nationals “to come here quite literally on a vacation, give birth, and then all of a sudden the child and their family have the full benefits of American citizenship.”
“It’s just a preposterous ruling, and the absurdity of that outcome suggests why the Supreme Court should have went the other way.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
