WASHINGTON — Soon after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality birthright citizenship Tuesday, President Donald Trump called for Congress to act, and some Alabama Republicans echoed that push.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices rejected Trump’s broad executive order that aimed to limit who birthright citizenship applied to in the United States. Five of the six justices in the majority ruled that the 14th Amendment protects virtually all individuals born in the country.
But the president isn’t giving up, even though any legislative solution faces significant hurdles, especially one that involves a constitutional amendment.
“Congress should start TODAY to work on ending the expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” Trump posted on Truth Social Tuesday. “They will have my Complete and Total Support!”
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., concurred, calling the Supreme Court’s decision “extremely disappointing” and throwing her support behind congressional intervention to restrict birthright citizenship.
“Congress must take action and end unlimited birthright citizenship immediately,” Britt wrote on social media. “The majority of the globe does not recognize this form of citizenship that has been grossly exploited to the detriment of our country.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a constitutional lawyer, said the practice has been abused by “birthing tourism.”
“I’m very disappointed in that outcome,” Johnson told reporters. “I think it subjects the country to serious challenges going forward and we’ll have to deal with that as a Congress.”
Other Alabama Republicans also took Trump’s reaction to the decision as a rallying cry. U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, said Congress “must end birthright citizenship.”
“They should remember that their job is to go by our Constitution and to stand up for Americans, not bow to the woke mob,” U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said of the court.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for five of the justices who upheld birthright citizenship, including conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’”
In a concurring opinion, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that Trump’s executive order violated federal law, but not the Constitution.
The conservative justice suggested Congress could “enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country.” But “ Congress has not yet done so,” he wrote.
To achieve Trump’s goal of restricting birthright citizenship, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, a former state attorney general, is pushing for a constitutional amendment.
“That amendment will restore the original American understanding of citizenship,” Schmitt said Tuesday. “It will restore the right of the American people to define their own political community. And it will ensure that citizenship once again reflects allegiance, permanence, and membership in the American nation.”
But a constitutional amendment would be an extremely tough feat to pull off, as it requires the support of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of the states to ratify it.
The birthright citizenship case is especially important to Trump as part of his larger immigration crackdown, as made evident in his history-making visit to the Supreme Court for oral arguments in April.
On Tuesday, Democrats welcomed the ruling and its protection of the 14th Amendment.
“Donald Trump tried to undermine that constitutional guarantee, but even his right-wing Supreme Court made clear that the 14th Amendment is not up for debate,” U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said the Supreme Court’s decision affirms that Trump’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship are “clearly unlawful and an assault on our way of life.”
Alabama was one of 24 states that backed Trump’s push to restrict birthright citizenship. Attorney General Steve Marshall joined a brief last year in support of the White House’s executive order.