Supreme court decisions often provide a window into the court’s ideological leanings and judicial philosophies. In recent years, the court, which is composed of six conservative and three liberal justices, has issued rulings that have dramatically reshaped the federal government and American life.
On Tuesday, the court struck down Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, delivering a blow to a central piece of the Trump administration’s agenda in one of the most highly anticipated decisions of the term.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion, which ruled that the executive order issued by Trump at the start of his second term violated the 14th amendment of the constitution.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community,” wrote Roberts. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
Roberts was joined by the court’s liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – as well as conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Jackson wrote a concurring opinion, which Sotomayor joined in part. Conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the court’s judgment but dissented in part, arguing that the executive order was unlawful under federal law, but that it did not violate the constitution. Three of the court’s conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – filed dissenting opinions.
The court’s writings totaled nearly 200 pages. Here are some of the key quotes from the decision, concurring opinions and dissents.
Roberts wrote that there was ‘scant evidence’ in support of the Trump administration’s ‘dramatically revisionist view’ of the 14th amendment
Roberts, in his opinion, wrote that “the Government and the principal dissent err” when it came to their definition of “allegiance”.
“Natural allegiance, they contend, was no longer sufficient for citizenship; some greater quantum of allegiance was required,” he wrote.
“How much?” Roberts asked. “The Government offers a smorgasbord of formulations: ‘primary allegiance,’ ‘sufficient allegiance,’ ‘full allegiance,’ ‘requisite allegiance’ … What all these formulations supposedly share is that they turn on domicile – the place of one’s permanent home. At some point before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the argument goes, it became ‘deeply rooted’ in this country that ‘[d]omicile is the key concept that creates allegiance’.”
“The trouble is that there is scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view. Certainly no one said that such a change had occurred,” Roberts wrote.
Jackson, in her concurrence, rebuked Thomas’s reading of the 14th amendment
In her concurring opinion, Jackson took direct aim at Thomas and his interpretation of the citizenship clause.
She wrote that “despite his longstanding endorsement of a ‘colorblind’ Constitution, Justice Thomas now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure”.
“It is for this reason, he says, that ‘children who were born in the United States but [to parents] not domiciled here’ are not entitled to claim birthright citizenship,” she wrote. “But that narrow vision of the Fourteenth Amendment bears little relationship to the history of its ratification. Even worse, Justice Thomas’s telling elides the entire point of the Second Founding: The Reconstruction Amendments were an anticaste, antisubordination reset for the Nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery.”
Jackson warned against what she described as ‘the distortion of historical facts’
In her writing, Jackson noted that “after the Civil War, Fredrick Douglass frequently reflected on the events of the time through the lens of biblical stories”; she said that in one speech, “Douglass declared that his own aim was to ‘show that nations should have memories’”.
“In the time since Douglass’s prescient observation, Americans have come to learn that fading memories are not the only danger,” she wrote. “The distortion of historical facts – retellings that reimagine and repurpose past events to lend credence to misbegotten aims – may be an even greater threat.”
“Yet here we are,” she continued. “The Government, the principal dissent, and a handful of revisionist commentators now vigorously promote an interpretation of the Citizenship Clause that diverges sharply not only from what the text says, but also from the historical record as interpreted by the keepers of ‘the call of remembrance’ (trained historians).”
“What is more, this alternative account pitches Black Americans against immigrants when the advocates who promoted the Fourteenth Amendment did no such thing,” she added. “Freed Blacks fought for the shared humanity of all people. And the Great Emancipator eventually foresaw that the only path forward that could prevent a return – in any form – to slavery and race-based subordination was to link the fates of all.”
Jackson: ‘It is the Government and Justice Thomas who have “repurposed the Fourteenth Amendment”’
“It is the Government and Justice Thomas who have ‘repurposed the Fourteenth Amendment’,” she wrote. “By ignoring that our Constitution stands firmly against caste and subjugation – on all axes and in all manners – they deny the clear, universalist vision shared and proclaimed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Framers: to ‘rebuild a shattered empire ... to plant deep and solid the corner-stone of eternal justice, and to erect thereon a superstructure of perfect equality of every human being before the law.”
She added: “Of course, the ultimate irony is that for all the talk about the detestable Dred Scott decision, the Government and the principal dissent propose a return to its core tenet.”
“Their bottom line is that, for certain people, being born on American soil will not suffice to confer citizenship. It is that odious conclusion that the Citizenship Clause plainly rejects, as the Court explains,” she wrote. “I add only that the Fourteenth 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. 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.”
Thomas wrote in his dissent that Black people were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans with ‘no other homeland’
“Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans,” Thomas wrote. “They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority. They ‘fought and bled in the same battles,’ ‘gained and gloried in the same victories,’ and were ‘liable to be called upon to defend [America] in time of war’ alongside every other citizen.”
“The Citizenship Clause thus guaranteed them the ‘dignity and glory of American citizenship,’ so as to ensure that they would never be treated as second class under the law,” he wrote. “The same could not be said for the children of foreign temporary visitors. Foreign temporary visitors were attached to their home country, lacked similar bonds to this country, and would not be called upon in time of war.”
Thomas said that he believes that ‘many potential applications of the President’s Order are consistent with the original public meaning of the Citizenship Clause’
“The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Thomas wrote. “In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support. Because many potential applications of the President’s Order are consistent with the original public meaning of the Citizenship Clause, I respectfully dissent.”
Thomas: ‘I am not sure that today’s opinion will stand the test of time’
“The Court has repurposed the Fourteenth Amendment to protect its own set of preferred rights that the Reconstruction Congress never contemplated and that cannot find support in its text,” he wrote. “Today, the Court does so again by recognizing a constitutional right to citizenship for the children of all foreign birth tourists and illegal aliens.”
“I am not sure that today’s opinion will stand the test of time,” Thomas wrote. “The Citizenship Clause ‘added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship.’”
“Today’s opinion devalues that citizenship,” he added.
Alito called the decision ‘one of the most important’ in the court’s history and said that ‘in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake’
“This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake,” Alito wrote in his dissent. “As interpreted by the Court today, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of ‘birth tourists.’”
“Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way,” he wrote. “Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.”
Kavanaugh said that Congress could ‘amend or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country’
In his opinion, Kavanaugh argued that he believed that the order does not violate the 14th amendment, but said that the order “does contravene a federal statute”.
“Congress could – consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment – amend §1401(a) or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country,” he wrote. “But Congress has not yet done so.”
