The U.S. Supreme Court on the 30th of last month (local time) invalidated 6-3 the executive order limiting birthright citizenship that President Trump signed on the first day of his second-term inauguration. The court held that a person born in the United States is a U.S. citizen whether their parents are undocumented immigrants or on temporary visas, and that a president cannot redefine the scope of citizenship by executive order.
The ruling is Trump's third major defeat at the Supreme Court this term. Earlier in February, the court struck down the tariff Trump imposed on imports worldwide under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and in late June it also blocked an attempt to immediately remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. By contrast, the same court sided with Trump and the conservative camp on immigrant removals, restrictions on transgender athletes, easing gun regulations, and scrapping campaign finance limits.
The Supreme Court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority among its nine justices, and Trump nominated three of them—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett—during his first term. While the court, where Trump cemented a conservative edge, has generally backed his policy direction, assessments say it has put the brakes on a president exercising powers not granted by the Constitution or Congress.
The U.S. Supreme Court performs the functions of both Korea's Supreme Court and Constitutional Court. It is the court of last resort for ordinary cases and issues final judgments on whether the president and Congress have violated the Constitution and on conflicts between federal and state law. Supreme Court justices have no fixed term unless impeached or they resign voluntarily, so judges nominated by a president can shape U.S. law and institutions for decades after the president leaves office.
The U.S. Supreme Court begins a new term each October and hands down major rulings through late June the following year. Even after arguments end in April, justices draft and negotiate majority and dissenting opinions, so the more complex and divisive the case, the more likely it is to be decided in the final week of the term. On the last day of the term on the 30th of last month, three major rulings—on birthright citizenship, transgender sports and campaign finance—were announced at once.
The biggest case this term was birthright citizenship. Under the 14th Amendment, the United States has granted citizenship to those born in the country regardless of their parents' nationality or immigration status. Trump's executive order denied citizenship to a child born in the United States if neither parent was a citizen or a permanent resident. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority that a person born in the United States and subject to U.S. law is a citizen regardless of parental status. Justices Gorsuch and Barrett fully joined, and Justice Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, concurred in the judgment on the separate ground that the executive order violated the Immigration and Nationality Act rather than the Constitution.
The 14th Amendment, which the court cited as the basis for its ruling, was adopted in 1868 after the Civil War to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved Black people. Citing an 1898 precedent that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a U.S. citizen, the court confirmed that the principle applies today to children of undocumented and temporary residents. When the government, pointing to changes in the immigration landscape, sought a narrower reading, Chief Justice Roberts countered at oral argument, "It is a new world. But the Constitution is the same Constitution." In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 64% of Americans opposed ending birthright citizenship and 32% supported it. The court's decision aligned with the majority of public opinion.
Unlike birthright citizenship, the court gave the Trump administration discretion on actual immigration enforcement. It allowed the termination of deferred removal and work authorization that had been granted to immigrants from Haiti and Syria who remained in the United States after fleeing war and disaster. It also held that asylum seekers arriving at the Mexican border cannot demand a chance to be screened before entering U.S. soil. While it preserved birthright citizenship based on the 14th Amendment, the ruling is seen as granting the administration more authority to raise hurdles for foreign residents' status and to turn people back at the border.
The court also showed a clear conservative stance in a ruling over transgender athletes. It upheld West Virginia and Idaho laws that restrict participation by transgender women and girls in women's sports. Writing for the majority, Justice Kavanaugh said, "Each state may operate girls' and women's sports for biological females," adding, "The Constitution and Title IX do not require a wholesale overhaul of women's sports across the United States." Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funding and is credited as the institutional foundation that expanded opportunities for girls' and women's school sports in the United States. The key question in this case was whether the law extends to guaranteeing transgender girls' participation in women's divisions. While the court held that "each state may restrict participation," it did not force states that have chosen to admit transgender athletes to implement participation limits. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 67% of respondents in the United States said transgender people should not compete in women's sports.
The court also struck down a Hawaii law that broadly limited carrying firearms on private property open to the public, such as stores and restaurants. It curtailed application of a federal law that categorically barred gun possession by marijuana users. It also found that caps on coordinated candidate spending by political parties violate freedom of expression. Conservative legal doctrine in the United States views spending on political advertising and campaigning as an expression of political opinion.
Two rulings on the president's power to remove officials produced split outcomes. The court allowed the president to more easily remove members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Chief Justice Roberts said, "The president must be able to rely on trustworthy officials, and neither Congress nor the courts can foist upon the president someone the president cannot work with."
By contrast, it blocked the removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The court said, "If the central bank that sets interest rates becomes subordinate to a president's short-term political goals, financial markets could be destabilized, and historically the Federal Reserve has been recognized as more independent than other regulatory agencies." The court added, however, that this decision merely prevented immediate removal while the case proceeds and did not finally resolve the merits.
Experts say that while the court this term bolstered Trump's immigration enforcement, conservative social policies and grip on the executive branch, it drew a line against attempts by a president to take powers belonging to the Constitution or Congress. Notably, conservative justices themselves split over how far a president can dominate the executive branch.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the decision blocking the removal of a Federal Reserve governor, criticizing that "policy considerations about central bank independence have pushed aside the executive power defined by the Constitution."
By contrast, liberal Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent in the Slaughter decision allowing removal of FTC Commissioners, criticized that "the FTC is an independent agency designed to ensure that corporate regulation does not sway with politics when administrations change by guaranteeing bipartisan experts' terms," adding, "This ruling allows the president to replace commissioners he does not like." The ruling is interpreted to mean that an agency designed to protect long-term public interests without direct presidential control has, in effect, become little different from an ordinary executive department.