WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation today released the following statements lauding the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., which partially stayed several nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts against the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending universal birthright citizenship.
Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation:
“The Supreme Court’s rebuke of nationwide or universal injunctions is an important step toward restoring the judiciary to its proper constitutional role. Judges have the power to guard the rights of the people who come before them, but they don’t have the power to set or derail nationwide policy. They’re judges, not presidents or legislators, and today’s decision reminds them of that.”
The underlying question of the merits of universal birthright citizenship remains unanswered.
Lora Ries, director of Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center, added:
“The Court did not yet address the time-sensitive merits of ending the erroneous universal birthright citizenship interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Rather, the court tossed that decision back down to the lower court to decide. The longer this issue goes undecided, the more illegal aliens and temporary visitors will exploit the universal birthright citizenship interpretation to prevent their deportation and to receive financial and long-term immigration benefits available for U.S. citizens.”
Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Amy Swearer added that even though the Court did not resolve questions about the executive order’s constitutionality, there is good reason to believe that a majority of the Justices will ultimately vindicate the order on the merits:
“A majority of this Court once again demonstrated a commitment to saying what the law is, and not what they wish it to be. This, of course, will prove very important in a case where advocates of universal birthright citizenship routinely mischaracterize or ignore the compelling historical evidence supporting a far more limited original meaning of the Citizenship Clause.”
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