South Carolina lawmakers react to Supreme Court upholding Birthright Citizenship
WASHINGTON (WCIV) — In a 6-3 vote, the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, upholding the long-standing 14th Amendment that states anyone born in the United States is automatically granted American citizenship.
The ruling, which serves as a major blow to President Trump’s bid to crack down on immigration in the United States, sparked various reactions from South Carolina lawmakers.
U.S. Rep. James Clyburn celebrated the ruling as a victory, explaining that today’s ruling “reaffirms the clear words of the Constitution.”
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The 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, makes a citizen of anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions. Conservatives have attempted to curtail the practice, but the effort would require a direct amendment to the Constitution in order to stand up to legal scrutiny.
“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, citing congressional debate over the amendment, “We keep that promise today.”
U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham, who has frequently railed against birthright citizenship, vowed that following the court’s ruling, he will work harder than ever to “put an end to this major magnet for illegal immigration and birth tourism.”
“There should be two pathways to citizenship – one, under the 14th Amendment, to ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ and two, via naturalization,” Graham said. “I disagree with the Supreme Court that children of illegal aliens and aliens only in the U.S. temporarily are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States.”
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The court, striking down Trump’s executive order, reaffirmed the decision made by several lower courts. The order had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.
Trump said the decision was “too bad for our Country” and wrongly suggested that Congress could “easily” address it with legislation. The majority decision rests on constitutional grounds. It would take an amendment to overcome the decision.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace also claimed, without evidence, that birthright citizenship has “been abused” for too long. She assailed the ruling, which rests directly on the plain reading of the 14th Amendment.
“It was never meant to reward illegal immigration. It was never meant to be a backdoor into American citizenship. The Supreme Court got this one wrong, plain and simple,” Mace said. “American citizenship is a privilege, not a prize handed out for breaking our laws.”
Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who joined multiple multistate amicus briefs throughout the legal process defending President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, expressed disappointment in the decision, claiming that the 14th Amendment was not meant to grant automatic citizenship to individuals born to non-citizen parents.
“For 150 years, the 14th Amendment has been misapplied, granting birthright citizenship to those never intended by the drafters,” Wilson said. “This amendment was rightfully designed to bestow citizenship on emancipated slaves, but since then, it has been misinterpreted to incentivize the ridiculous notion that someone can come to the United States in the dead of night, drop a child like an anchor, and suddenly that child is granted citizenship forever.”
More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.