Justices Rule on ‘Emergency Request’ From Trump Administration

In an unusual development, the Supreme Court revealed Thursday that it will hear oral arguments in May regarding President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, after the administration filed an emergency request.

On his first day in office this January, Trump signed an executive order interpreting the 14th Amendment to mean that only children born to parents “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States qualify for citizenship.

According to the Western Journal, the executive action would effectively strip automatic citizenship rights from children born in the U.S. to individuals who are not legal residents.

Originally adopted after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was designed to ensure that formerly enslaved people were recognized as citizens of both the United States and their respective states.

Over the decades, the amendment has been widely read to confer citizenship to nearly anyone born on U.S. soil. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has yet to issue a conclusive decision on the full extent of this interpretation. It did, however, rule in 1895 that children born to lawful resident aliens are U.S. citizens.

Following the January order, CBS News reported that more than half a dozen lawsuits emerged in federal courts across the country, including jurisdictions in Washington, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

Federal judges moved to block the executive order, and appeals courts in San Francisco, Boston, and Richmond, Virginia, upheld those blocks.

As CBS News detailed, “The Justice Department filed emergency appeals of the three decisions with the Supreme Court in mid-March and asked it to limit enforcement of the birthright citizenship order to 28 states and individuals who are not involved in the ongoing cases.”

On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a directive setting oral arguments for May 15. As The Hill pointed out, holding a hearing so late in the session—which typically concludes in June—is considered highly unusual.

During his campaign, Trump asserted that “Constitutional scholars have shown for decades that granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegal aliens born in the United States is based on a patently incorrect interpretation of the 14th Amendment.”

He further stated, “The framers of the 14th Amendment made clear that ‘persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers’ are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the U.S.”

Speaking to reporters at the White House following the Court’s announcement, Trump expressed his satisfaction: “I am so happy. I think the case has been so misunderstood.”

Trump argued that the 14th Amendment does not extend citizenship to individuals simply by virtue of their presence in the country—whether as tourists or as undocumented immigrants—and therefore their children should not automatically become citizens.

“That is all about slavery. And even look at the dates in which [the amendment] was signed. It was right in that era … right after the Civil War,” Trump explained. “If you look at it that way, the case is an easy case to win.”

Because the 14th Amendment limits its protections to those “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, many conservatives have long debated the actual meaning of that phrase.

Experts predict the Trump administration will argue that illegal immigrants remain primarily under the legal authority of their native countries.