The Freedom From Religion Foundation welcomes the Supreme Court ruling striking down President Trump’s attempt to end the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship.
In a 5-4 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that children born in the United States are guaranteed citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Roberts was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, guarantees citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States.” It clarified, in part, that freed enslaved people were citizens. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order seeking to deny birthright citizenship for the children of temporary visitors or undocumented immigrants.
Justice Kavanaugh concurred with the result but dissented from the majority’s conclusion that the Constitution protects birthright citizenship for temporary and undocumented immigrants. In his view, the executive order violates existing immigration statutes but Congress could amend federal immigration law to restrict citizenship on the same grounds without violating the 14th Amendment.
FFRF, as a state/church watchdog working to uphold constitutional provisions, has been closely monitoring the case.
“We’re relieved that even this highly conservative Supreme Court agrees that the Constitution means what it says,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. “The 14th Amendment’s language is remarkably clear, and more than 150 years of precedent confirms its meaning. Constitutional rights cannot simply be erased because a president disagrees with them. If this administration can rewrite one constitutional guarantee by executive order, no constitutional protection is truly secure.”
The case also reaffirmed the court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born on American soil, regardless of their parents’ nationality. Roberts wrote that the court has “repeatedly understood the rule of Wong Kim Ark to guarantee citizenship to all children born in the United States and subject to its power,” adding that the justices saw “no reason to depart from that view today.”
Trump broke with presidential protocol by appearing in person to hear oral arguments, which many interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the justices, three of whom he appointed. He stayed to listen to U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s argument against birthright citizenship, but left when ACLU attorney Cecilia Wong began her argument in defense of the constitutional principle.
“The Citizenship Clause was written to remove this issue from political debate and place it beyond the reach of changing administrations,” adds FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott. “The court rightly recognized that presidents cannot rewrite the Constitution by executive order simply because they disagree with its plain language or longstanding precedent.”
Adds Gaylor, “We at the Freedom From Religion Foundation are glad to say the Constitution survives, and we’ll be doubling down on our work to defend its secular and democratic principles.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
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