Judging by the meltdowns on social media yesterday, one would have thought the Supreme Court had struck down MAGA hats as unconstitutional. The ire mainly focused on Justice Amy Coney Barrett after the Trump v Barbara decision upheld the longstanding legal definition of birthright citizenship, which was not authored by Barrett but by Chief Justice John Roberts. Commentators on the Right castigated Barrett as a traitor, corrupted by power, and a tool of Roberts and the Left.
The meltdown didn't include the man who may have had the most reason to rage. Donald Trump took the loss in stride, although he did post a snarky message later, congratulating China for its win on birthright citizenship. Trump posted a message on Truth Social hailing the historic win in Trump v Slaughter and the return of executive authority over agencies with executive power. Trump even thanked the court for its work this year, and especially for the fairness with which it treated Republicans in these cases:
The biggest and most consequential Decision issued by the Court, by far, is the Slaughter Case, which overturned the very famous Humphrey’s Executor Rule. This whole concept of “Power” has been fought over for nearly 100 years, going all the way back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, where a large slice of his Power was taken away. He fought to regain it, even wanting to “pack the Court,” but was unsuccessful in doing so. This Decision gives tremendous additional Power back to the Presidency, where it belongs. It is an Honor to be the sitting President who, after all these years, WON this very important, and hard fought, Case. We had other good Victories, too, and we also had the Birthright Citizenship loss, which we will work to correct in Congress, but the big SLAUGHTER, was SLAUGHTER. The Republican Party was treated very fairly by the United States Supreme Court. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
This did little to impact the meltdown over Barbara, but it should have been seen as a signal. In my analysis, I asked, "Did anyone expect a different outcome in Donald Trump's attempt to redefine birthright citizenship by executive order? Really?" This makes it seem clear that Trump didn't expect to win this case either, and for good reason. Presidents cannot overturn statutes or the Constitution with executive orders. The birthright citizenship argument used had already been adjudicated by the Supreme Court in 1898's Wong Kim Ark case; a federal statute undergirded that interpretation; the explicit text of the Fourteenth Amendment blocked any other interpretation.
The meltdowns on social media ignored all of that in favor of the policy outcome. However, that misinterprets the role of the judiciary. Conservatives have rightly screamed over judicial activism and appropriation of legislative and executive authority, and any other ruling would have been exactly that. Birthright citizenship rules do create a problem, but the problem is in statute and the Constitution, not in the judiciary. Those problems have to be fixed in the legislative branch first, and then by the states.
And in fact, as Trump pointed out, Congress already has begun taking action about it:
Several bills, most notably the Birthright Citizenship Act introduced by Babin and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one day after Trump's inauguration in 2025 (and similar versions in recent Congresses), seek to end or sharply restrict automatic birthright citizenship by amending the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
These measures would reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause to grant citizenship at birth only to children with at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident (LPR) residing in the U.S., or an LPR serving in the military.
The exploitation of U.S. birthright citizenship through “anchor babies” involves pregnant illegal immigrants, predominantly from Latin America, giving birth to children in U.S. territory, and thus, automatically becoming citizens, which may later serve as a basis for family sponsorship or complicate deportation proceedings.
Will these work? In Barbara, the court leaned heavily on the language of the Fourteenth Amendment and its use of English common-law understanding of birthright citizenship. That would indicate that the only effective route would be a constitutional amendment to replace that clause, Jonathan Turley writes:
On birthright citizenship, the matter now rests not with the court but the country. We have never truly had a national debate over the practice. The basis and future of birthright citizenship have remained matters almost exclusively for the courts.
We must now decide whether to pursue such a debate as a constitutional amendment.
While Congress can pass legislation cracking down on birth tourism, there is only so much that such laws can do in questioning why particular births occurred in the United States, such as the birth of Balogun.
We'll obviously have these debates for a while, but in the meantime, perhaps people need to take a longer view of the court's work, even in this session. The Wall Street Journal took its lead from Trump, looked at the entire term, and concluded that Trump has good reason to be gracious:
Despite President Trump’s defeat at the Supreme Court in his bid to limit birthright citizenship, he has notched several recent court victories that are expected to turbocharge his deportation efforts.
Perhaps most vulnerable are hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. under what is known as Temporary Protected Status, after a 6-3 decision from the high court that judges have little power to review the executive branch’s decisions about the program. ...
In addition, an appeals court ruled last week that the administration could move forward with a process known as expedited removal, which allows the government to fast-track deportations without court hearings for immigrants who can’t prove they have lived in the U.S. for longer than two years. Up to 622,000 people could be targeted using that tool, according to an estimate from the Migration Policy Institute.
Taken together, the courts’ moves expand the universe of people the administration can now target for deportation, as the White House comes under pressure to increase numbers to fulfill Trump’s central campaign promise.
And that's just on immigration. Add in the decision in Slaughter, the vindication of Trump's fight for women in sports in West Virginia and Hecox, and other wins in this term, and Trump had a very good year at the court. Barrett and Roberts were significant parts of those wins, too.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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