The Memo: SCOTUS clears the way for Trump – and for his successors
The Supreme Court’s decision in a birthright citizenship case, handed down on Friday, has ramifications way beyond President Trump.
The big, long-term impact is the granting of greater leeway to future presidents as well as to the current one. The power of the courts to curb actions emanating from the Oval Office has been significantly diluted.
Whether that is a good or bad thing is in the eye of the beholder -- refracted through the lens of party loyalties.
For now, the decision is being celebrated by Republicans and lamented by Democrats. Those roles are nearly sure to reverse the next time a Democratic president moves into the White House.
The high court did not, in fact, weigh in on the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order to shift the definition of birthright citizenship.
Trump wants to change the automatic assumption that people born in the United States are automatically American citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.
That push is framed by immigration hawks as a battle to thwart the concept of ‘anchor babies’ – infants born in the United States, allegedly in order to put their unauthorized-migrant parents effectively outside the reach of deportation efforts.
But liberals argue the Trump effort is unconstitutional on its face, given the Fourteenth Amendment’s apparently clear statement that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Liberals also assert that the clause about “jurisdiction”........
© The Hill
