On Wednesday, April 1, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on President Trump’s attempt to change birthright citizenship policy through executive order. We’ll be listening to the oral arguments here, and so can you.
There are two issues. The first is the procedural question: Can a president change the interpretation and application of the Constitution through executive order?
Now, the almost immediate answer is going to be an emphatic “no,” but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Each branch of the federal government has an obligation to interpret the Constitution. Officials in each branch take an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” And since the executive branch is tasked with enforcing the 14th Amendment, it’s not crazy for the executive branch to interpret its constitutional obligations as it enforces them.
On the other hand, the “major questions doctrine” that this Supreme Court has thankfully been applying to disputes means major changes in federal policy should be decided by the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. It wouldn’t be a surprise for the Court to conclude that this applies to the interpretation and application of the 14th Amendment.
The Court can, and probably will, limit itself to the procedural issue, since that’s the only question the Court must address in this case. The Court often decides only the minimally necessary questions posed to it.
So, the Court probably won’t choose to settle the question of birthright citizenship, though it could. This would leave the debate open, in theory to be settled by Congress or in a future Supreme Court decision.
The best solution is a clarifying amendment to the Constitution. No one thinks it was the intention of the 14th Amendment to provide citizenship to birth tourists, who cross the border for no other purpose than to bestow U.S. citizenship on their newborn. We know this happens, and it isn’t just illegals crossing the southern border—it’s also wealthy couples from South America, Europe and Asia who return home with trinkets from Disney World and citizenship for their newborn.
IPI will be proposing a clarifying amendment on birthright citizenship as part of our Renewing America 250 set of proposed constitutional amendments later this year. In our view, it’s long past time to update elements in our system left over from the horse and buggy days when it took weeks for Congress to convene, and to deal with current problems not previously anticipated, including birthright citizenship.