WASHINGTON, DC – Following oral argument at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today in State of Washington v. Trump, a case in which the court is considering whether the Trump Administration’s executive order purporting to limit birthright citizenship to children who have at least one parent who is a citizen or is lawfully admitted for permanent residence is unconstitutional, Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) Senior Appellate Counsel Smita Ghosh issued the following reaction:

In today’s argument, the government insisted that its position was not “drastic.” But there’s no question that it is. The government argues that a child’s citizenship should depend on their parent’s “domicile”—or whether the parent subjectively intends to make the United States their home. But as the amicus brief CAC filed on behalf of an ideologically diverse group of experts in constitutional and immigration law makes clear, no one has ever understood the Fourteenth Amendment in that way.

CAC Equal Justice Works Fellow Anna Jessurun added this reaction:

As Judge Gould and Judge Hawkins referenced in their questions, a “domicile” requirement does not appear anywhere in the Fourteenth Amendment’s text and was not discussed by the Amendment’s Framers. Indeed, as CAC’s brief makes clear, the government’s claim that noncitizen parents must be domiciled in the United States for their children to be entitled to birthright citizenship is flatly atextual and ahistorical.  The Ninth Circuit should reject this argument. Under the plain meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, virtually all children born in the United States are citizens of the United States at birth.