Trump limits the right to citizenship. Supreme Court will deal with 'land law'

On Friday, the Supreme Court accepted a request to consider a complaint against Donald Trump's regulation limiting the acquisition of US citizenship upon birth in the country. The decree has not yet entered into force because its constitutionality was questioned by lower courts.

The court said it would consider a lawsuit originally brought by the civil rights organization, the American Civil Liberties Union. The decision to consider the case itself – the Supreme Court accepts only a small fraction of requests for an opinion – creates the possibility that the current understanding of the law on acquiring citizenship, maintained for over a century, may change.

The hearing in which both sides will present their arguments will take place in the first half of next year, and the verdict will be issued by June.

The law of land (ius soli) is mentioned in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states that “every person who is born or naturalized in the United States, and is subject to the sovereignty thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the state in which he resides.” So far – as confirmed by subsequent Supreme Court decisions – this meant that anyone born in the United States became a citizen of that country. However, on the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an order revoking the right to citizenship for children of parents who are in the US illegally or on the basis of non-immigrant visas (including business, student and tourist visas).

So far, lower courts have consistently ruled that Trump's executive order was illegal and blocked its entry into force. In June, the Supreme Court dealt with the complaint regarding the president's regulation, but only considered whether the courts had the right to block this law and did not address the merits of the case. Although its ruling limited the courts' ability to block, the decree was suspended again shortly after the ruling, this time using a different legal route.

ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang said Friday that she's glad the Supreme Court will “resolve this case once and for all.”

– Federal courts unanimously ruled that President Trump's executive order is contrary to the Constitution, the Supreme Court's 1898 decision and the law passed by Congress – she added, quoted by CNN.

From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)

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