Amicus Brief on Behalf of Birthright Citizenship

The Society for the Rule of Law Institute has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the respondents in Trump v. “Barbara” et. al, urging the Supreme Court to uphold the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire’s preliminary injunction against Trump’s Executive Order 14,160- an Order that strikes down birthright citizenship for children of parents who live in the United States unlawfully.

The brief challenges the constitutionality of Trump’s Executive Order. The Society for the Rule of Law Institute argues that, by unilaterally attempting to curtail birthright citizenship, Trump violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, usurps the legislative and judicial power in blatant violation of constitutionally mandated separation of powers, and disregards clear judicial precedent.

 

This case thus asks whether the President can arrogate to himself both the legislative power to make the law and the judicial power to interpret the law. Thus, the danger to our Republic lies not just in the result here, but in the method by which it was achieved. The Order provides a blueprint by which any President may purport to “reinterpret”—but really rewrite—any constitutional provision or statute by Executive Order, no matter how this Court had previously interpreted the law. Having imposed his will by fiat, the President can then dare this Court or Congress to try to catch up with, and seek to limit, the new law he has made.

That is what happened here. Executive Order 14,160 purports to establish a new rule of American citizenship. But amid the ashes of the Civil War and in the wake of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment proposed—and the American people ratified—a contrary precept: the “ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory” that has since formed a cornerstone of our constitutional order. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 693.

No single official may rewrite the Constitution—not even the President. See U.S. Const. art. V. Nor may he rewrite a statute. See Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417, 438 (1998). This Court should reaffirm these fundamental principles by rejecting the President’s lawless claim to sweeping authority to rewrite our Constitution and our laws.

 

Read the full brief here. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].

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