Supreme Court Upholds Virtually Unlimited United States Birthright Citizenship

            As predicted in my June 17 post, as well as by many others, including President Trump himself, the Supreme Court today overturned the executive order which prevented birthright citizenship for children born in the United States, if their foreign parents were here only temporarily or if neither parent of such a child was a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident. The vote on the Supreme Court was 6-3 against the President’s order, but only 5-4 on the constitutional issue. As expected, the three judges on the left voted against the order in their usual anti-Trump ideological conformity. The opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and was also joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Brett Kavana ugh agreed with the decision that the order was invalid but on the narrow basis that federal statutes had upheld a broad definition of birthright citizenship. He agreed with the three dissenters (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch) that the Constitution does not compel virtually unrestricted birthright citizenship. I will address that opinion in more detail once I have had a chance to review it more thoroughly. I will be particularly interested in the Thomas dissent and the Kavanaugh concurrence.