NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Story courtesy of WVLT / WSMV) – Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and other attorneys general across the U.S. are bringing a birthright citizenship challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Skrmetti and company are asking SCOTUS to make the distinction that the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause does not provide automatic citizenship to everyone born in the U.S.
The attorneys general are asking SCOTUS to clarify that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause doesn’t provide automatic citizenship to all born in the US.
The states argue that the lower courts have “misinterpreted the Citizenship Clause to require automatic citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents’ residency and immigration status,” Skrmetti’s office said.
This move comes nearly one month after President Donald Trump’s administration asked SCOTUS to uphold the president’s birthright citizenship order, which declares that children born to parents who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily are not citizens of the U.S.
“The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn’t square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War,” Skrmetti said.
Skrmetti and the other attorneys general’s brief states that evidence from the 1860s through the early 1900s supports their interpretation.
