Top headlines
Lead story
As Justice Samuel Alito put it on Tuesday after the Supreme Court ruled to uphold birthright citizenship, it may be “one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court.” The ruling was also a rejection of President Donald Trump’s executive order, signed on the first day of his second term, that sought to end birthright citizenship for the children of parents present in the country illegally.
But as Morgan Marietta, a Supreme Court scholar at the University of Tennessee, told me, the decision was closer than many court watchers expected. That’s because four Republican-appointed justices view the original meaning of the 14th Amendment as primarily recognizing the citizenship of former slaves and their descendants after the Civil War. They do not see the amendment as applying to anyone born in the United States regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
As Marietta notes, the timing of the court’s ruling carries significance, coming just a few days before the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He writes that in Chief Justice John Roberts’ view, the declaration established the importance of individual rights and the equality of all in holding those rights. Citizenship, in this view, must be equal and open, defined as widely as the Constitution allows.
[ Science from the scientists themselves. Sign up for our weekly science email newsletter. ]
