NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
In America, We The People are the sovereign citizens. Our sovereign power flows from God to us. We lend power to our federal and state governments through the loan agreement called the U.S. Constitution.
This is radically different from Great Britain, from which we escaped, where the king or queen has sovereign power—and hands out sovereign crumbs to placate their subjects through documents like the Magna Carta. Our most crucial sovereign power, as We The People, is controlling our border and populace. We never gave away this power to unelected judges. Not at our founding and the passage of the Fifth Amendment. Not after the Civil War and the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Not in any subsequent Congress. Certainly not after the last election. Judges simply do not have the power to steal We The People’s sovereign power to control our border and populace. This includes the crucial issue of birthright citizenship.
TRUMP BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP FIGHT HEADS BACK TO SUPREME COURT AS NEW TERM BEGINS
Enacted after the Civil War to guarantee citizenship to the freed slaves and their descendants, the Fourteenth Amendment dictates that those persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States receive birthright citizenship. This phrase has, over the decades, developed an absurd meaning that is incorrect and incentivizes illegal immigration. Like the children of foreign ambassadors or invading armies, illegal immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Rather, they are foreign citizens subject to the jurisdiction of their home countries. For this reason, illegal immigrants cannot serve in the military or in government. Instead, they come to the United States and obtain jobs in secret, paid under the table, to avoid detection.
Demonstrators holds up an anti-Trump sign outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 27, 2025. (ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
The Supreme Court previously ruled in Elk v. Wilkins (1884) that the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright citizenship did not apply to the children of American Indians. Congress then passed a statute granting birthright citizenship to them. Answer this dispositive question: If birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t apply to American Indians, in what world would it apply to illegal aliens? It simply does not.
If illegal immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, it makes no sense that their children are. If a child is born to American parents in a foreign country, that child is still American; for instance, many military children are born overseas. Logically, the reverse also should be true.
Olga Urbina and her 9-month-old son Ares Webster participate in a protest outside the Supreme Court over President Donald Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship on May 15, 2025. (Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images)
President Trump, who has the same commonsense view of this issue, signed an executive order on January 20. The order dictates that children of illegal immigrant mothers and mothers here lawfully on a temporary basis are not entitled to citizenship, except where a child’s father is an American citizen or legal permanent resident. This order does not impact children already born here; rather, it only applies to children born 30 days after the order takes effect.
If birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t apply to American Indians, in what world would it apply to illegal aliens?
The order has yet to take effect because several courts immediately enjoined it. This June, the Supreme Court dramatically curtailed the issuance of nationwide injunctions in Trump v. CASA; however, district judges continued to enjoin the executive order on the basis that classes of plaintiffs with the same common question—challenging the order’s legality—as well as states could challenge it. The administration has sought review by the Supreme Court prior to decisions by any appellate court. This filing, known as a petition for certiorari before judgment, is rare, as the Supreme Court prefers that cases proceed in the normal order. The birthright citizenship case, however, is an exceptional one, and the Supreme Court should grant the petition.
A side-by-side photo of protesters demonstrating against the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and a photo of U.S. President Donald Trump signing executive orders at the White House. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Thursday, May 14, in a case involving birthright citizenship in the U.S. Photos via Getty Images (Getty Images)
In addition to the legal reasons why President Trump’s order should survive any challenge, there are important policy issues at stake. Many illegal immigrants want to bear children in the United States so those children can enjoy the benefits of American citizenship. These illegal aliens will risk their lives in many cases, either taking a chance on drowning in the Rio Grande or dying in the sweltering desert. Many illegals pay smugglers to assist them in crossing the border. Many of these smugglers are violent and engage in armed conflicts with Border Patrol agents, jeopardizing the lives of the agents, the illegal immigrant mothers, and the unborn children of pregnant illegals. In short, the current policy of birthright citizenship incentivizes illegal immigration and results in many dangerous border crossings. This irrational policy must change, and President Trump deserves massive credit for endeavoring to do so.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
Leftists have asserted in the media and in litigation that President Trump’s order is plainly illegal. The Supreme Court, however, has never addressed the specific question of whether children born to illegal immigrants are entitled to American citizenship. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Court addressed the issue of whether children born in the United States to permanent legal residents are citizens. The Court held that such children are because their status as permanent and legal residents demonstrates their allegiance to (“subject to the jurisdiction of”) the United States. President Trump’s executive order, however, has nothing to do with permanent legal residents. The order concerns illegals and those here on, for instance, temporary protected status. As such, Wong Kim Ark is irrelevant, and President Trump is not, contrary to leftists’ claims, defying Supreme Court precedent. Leftists judges, to the contrary, are violating We The People’s most crucial sovereign power of controlling our border and populace.
Our nation has a massive illegal immigration crisis. Over ten million illegals—and perhaps more than twenty million—poured into the United States thanks to President Biden’s abysmal border policy. Biden, Border Czar Kamala Harris, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas spent four disgraceful years grossly mismanaging our border, causing a deluge of illegal immigrants in cities across the country. Some of these illegals have targeted Americans, committing murders, rapes, armed robberies, and home invasions.
Other illegals have joined or were members of international terrorist organizations like Tren de Aragua. Still other illegals have made an income by selling drugs, including fentanyl-laced narcotics that have claimed many American lives. President Trump commendably is attempting to rectify the Biden border disaster, but inferior court judges have blocked his reasonable effort to do so. The time thus has come for the Supreme Court to intervene and affirm President Trump’s order that restores some sanity to our immigration system. Stealing We The People’s most crucial sovereign power to control our border and populace is the red line the Supreme Court cannot allow the federal judiciary to cross.
