Written for descendants of slaves, Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship

Enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that slaves and their descendants would be recognized as American citizens, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship in a monumental ruling announced Tuesday.  

As part of a wider effort to continue his control over immigration policies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

But by a vote of 6-3, the court struck down Trump’s order. 

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “We keep that promise today.”

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have upheld Trump’s order. 

Eric Holder, former attorney general under President Barack Obama, previously told the Milwaukee Courier that the court should not have taken the case in the first place and anything other than a 9-0 decision would be shocking. 

The NAACP issued a statement on Tuesday in wake of the ruling.

“Trump’s attempted assault on the 14th Amendment was dealt a major blow today. This decision is a powerful affirmation of the Constitution and the enduring promise of equality it represents,” said Derrick Johnson, President & CEO of the NAACP. “For over 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has guaranteed citizenship to everyone born in this country. Today, the Court rightly rejected efforts to undermine that core protection and instead upheld a principle that is essential to our democracy.”