Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship in Case With San Francisco Roots

The case was largely decided along ideological lines. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. In Alito’s dissent, he wrote: “[t]his is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed in the decision but under different reasoning.

For more than a century, babies born in the U.S. have been granted citizenship based on the 14th Amendment, which says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Initially introduced in response to laws in Southern states restricting the rights of formerly enslaved Black Americans after the Civil War, the Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that the 14th Amendment applies to all children born in the U.S. to parents “domiciled” within the country. This case was brought by Wong Kim Ark, a San Francisco-born man who successfully defended his claim to citizenship — after officials claimed that the fact that his parents were Chinese nationals at the time of his birth disqualified him.

Until now, only narrow exceptions existed for children whose parents were high-ranking foreign diplomats or were in the U.S. as an invading army.

In its case briefs, the Trump administration argued that the 14th Amendment was never intended to be extended to “the children of aliens illegally or temporarily” in the U.S. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, they argued, involved a child with parents who had “permanent domicil and residence,” and therefore Trump’s order is lawful and constitutional.

The court held that, in Wong Kim Ark, the 14th Amendment was “‘declaratory’ of the ‘fundamental rule of citizenship by birth’ that prevailed at common law … Under that understanding, aliens who traveled to the United States for ‘business or pleasure’ received no ‘exemption from the jurisdiction of the country.’”

“To the contrary, they were subject to that jurisdiction for as long as they remained here — and any children born to them were American citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.