In a long awaited ruling, the court affirmed by a 6-3 margin the constitutional right of birthright citizenship, that anyone born in the US is a citizen irrespective of the status of the parents. (There are small exceptions such as the children of foreign diplomats.)

The US supreme court has upheld birthright citizenship, which provides nearly all people born in the country with citizenship, ruling against a central piece of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

“Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause,” the ruling says.
…

The supreme court’s Dred Scott decision in 1857 had ruled Black people were not US citizens, but “a separate class of persons”. But the 14th amendment which reversed the Dred Scott decision, was adopted in 1868 during the reconstruction era after the US civil war, to codify the rights of Black Americans – and confer citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”.

The majority opinion walks through the plain meanings of citizenship, from English common law into slavery and then emancipation, and then into efforts to undermine citizenship, including the Chinese exclusion act.

Roberts writes that the “odious” decision in Dred Scott denied citizenship to Black people, arguing then that it was “blood, not soil” that decided citizenship. That was overturned via the 14th amendment, which the court affirmed on Tuesday in upholding birthright citizenship.
…

In her concurring opinion, [Ketanji Brown] Jackson writes that the 14th amendment’s “universalist aims should forever be the death knell for this kind of claim – one that seeks to make bloodline the marker of birthright”.

“The America that was reborn from the rubble of the Civil War simply does not countenance that inequitable result,” she wrote. “Thankfully, a majority of the Court remembered this today, and has dutifully preserved the most basic animating principle of our Nation’s founding – that all human beings are created equal – once more.”
…

The Trump administration argued the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means babies born in the US to people who are not lawfully present in the country are not citizens. The executive order says this includes when neither of a person’s parents were US citizens or lawful permanent residents, or if a parent has legal, but temporary, status. 

Trump is still seeking the power to more easily strip citizenship from naturalized citizens.

This was one of two cases where the court went against Trump’s wishes, another one being a 5-4 ruling that Trump could not summarily fire a member of the Federal Reserve, though they did allow him to fire without cause the heads of independent agencies or commission, overturning 90 years of precedents.

In a blow to transgender rights, the court ruled 6-3 that states can bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, continuing the assault on the rights of this already victimized group.

The court also struck down some limits on campaign spending. Since huge amounts of money, both open and dark, already flood US elections, this may not have much practical effect.

There is no doubt that this is a very right-wing, radical Supreme Court, willing to give sweeping power to the president, even one who has clearly demonstrated a vindictive nature, willing to use the immense power of the government to attack anyone who opposes him while enriching himself and his family and friends. When you have someone like Trump who violates every norm that usually restrains presidential actions, it becomes even more important to ensure that the safeguards of the constitution are strictly interpreted and enforced. The court has abandoned that role.