Washington DC [US], September 28 : US President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to revive his controversial policy to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the US to undocumented immigrants and to visitors on short-term visas, Politico reported.
In petitions submitted to the high court on Friday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to hear arguments on the issue early next year, which would likely result in a ruling by June.
If the high court acquiesces in that schedule, it would effectively highlight Trump's anti-birthright citizenship drive months before the Congressional midterm elections that will be pivotal for Trump to keep carrying out his agenda, as reported by Politico.
A ruling in the US President's favour would be a major victory for his immigration agenda, while a defeat would allow him to blame the justices for blocking one of his key priorities.
Trump expressed urgency on the issue by signing an anti-birthright executive order on his first day back in office in January, but it has never been implemented because four federal judges hearing lawsuits over the effort ruled that it clearly violates the 14th Amendment and longstanding Supreme Court precedent.
"The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children, not to the children of illegal aliens, birth tourists, and temporary visitors," Sauer wrote. "The plain text of the Clause requires more than birth on US soil alone," Politico reported.
However, all the district court judges who have considered the issue in recent months rejected that position, often in withering terms. They pointed to a broad legal consensus that nearly everyone born in the US acquires citizenship automatically at birth. The leading Supreme Court case on the issue, Wong Kim Ark v. US, held that a child born in the US to parents from China was entitled to US citizenship.
The Trump administration brought several birthright citizenship cases to the Supreme Court earlier this year, but only to ask the justices to use them as a vehicle to narrow the practice of individual federal judges issuing nationwide injunctions to block federal government policies. The high court granted that request in a 6-3 ruling in June, but did not opine on whether the underlying Trump policy is constitutional, Politico reported.
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