CNN One Thing

Out of all of President Donald Trump's executive orders, his day one attempt to end birthright citizenship was perhaps the boldest. Quick refresher, this is the 14th Amendment, which says anyone born on U.S. Soil, no matter who their parents are, is immediately a U. S. Citizen. No questions asked. This goes back to the 1800s. It was set up at the time as a way to ensure formerly enslaved people and their children would be granted citizenship. Well, President Trump has signed on to a fringe legal theory, which claims that the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted and that it does not apply to children of undocumented immigrants.

It's ridiculous. We're the only country in the world that does this with birthright, as you know. And it's just absolutely ridiculous.

Now, nearly all legal scholars disagree with that, and for the record, the US is not the only country that does this. About three dozen countries also grant citizenship on an unrestricted basis to those born on their soil. But nonetheless, Trump has plowed ahead, and multiple groups have filed lawsuits. Well, on Thursday, this clash will arrive at the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, CNN Supreme Court reporter John Fritze breaks down the case, and I'll talk to immigrant parents of a new baby who say they're fighting for their child's very identity. From CNN, this is One Thing, I'm David Rind.

Okay, John. So the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Thursday in this major case surrounding birthright citizenship. Can you remind us how we got to this point?

Yeah, I mean, Trump has shaved at birthright citizenship for a long time, including back to his first administration. He didn't do anything about it back then, but this time it was the very first day of his new administration.

This next order relates to the definition of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment of the United States.

That's a good one. That's a big one.

'Was this order that basically bars federal agencies from issuing documents like passports, social security, for babies that are born to non-citizens.

Breaking news just coming into us here at CNN. A judge says he will block President Trump's executive order ending the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.

That inspired a bunch of litigation. We have three lower courts at issue in this case that blocked Trump from enforcing that order.

And he said that the birthright citizenship executive order is blatantly unconstitutional and he's going to temporarily block that order.

Importantly, and I think we'll come back to this, the courts block the orders not just for the people who sued, but for everybody. And that's this issue of nationwide or universal injunctions.

So these arguments aren't specifically about whether ending birthright citizenship is unconstitutional or not. It's more about how wide the injunctions in these particular cases can be. Do I have that right?

That's absolutely right. And we should say right here at the outset that administrations of both parties have complained about these nationwide or universal injunctions. Biden complained about it. Obama complained about, Trump complained about in his first term. We've seen a huge increase in these because Trump I think would probably acknowledge if he was here with us right now that he got elected in part to shake up the system, to change things. And part of that means pushing the boundaries. Of the law. He's certainly done that. And the courts are reacting to that by shutting down these orders on a temporary basis. Like we should also point that out. These are not the final decisions in any of these cases that they've been considering. This is like what to do with the policy while the case continues to work its way through the

Right. But in the meantime, these judges say, Hey, we're going to put this on pause, not just for the people that brought the suit, but for everybody in the entire country, just to be sure that we're protecting the whole field. Is that the idea?

That's absolutely right. And I think that's a really important point. So the Trump administration, the Department of Justice will point out that this is not a case on the merits. And that is completely true. The merits of a birthright citizenship order are not really at issue here. However, the practical impact of this decision, if the Supreme Court gives Donald Trump what he wants, is that he'll be able to enforce this order against a large number of people, basically everybody in the country. While this case continues to work its way through lower courts. And that happens every time. The reason why it's so important or impactful this time around is that we have a birthright order that is hugely controversial. Most conservatives don't think that you can end birthright citizenship through an executive order. Some do, but the vast majority of conservatives, certainly liberals, we've got a Supreme Court precedent on this. Courts have sort of understood birthright citizenship to work a certain way since. 1868. And so if the court goes with Trump in this case, sure, like it's a technical legal sort of distinction here about how far the injunction, how many people it affects, but the practical on the ground implications are significant.

Well, yeah, so take me through that. If the justices do go that route. The language from some of these lower court judges has been extremely harsh, right? Like I want to read a few of them from US District Judge Deborah Boardman. No court in the country has ever endorsed the president's interpretation. This court will not be the first. A Reagan appointed judge in Seattle said, I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear. So won't the justizes know full well that If they take that approach, they'd essentially be greenlighting a policy that has been roundly rejected by lower courts.

I mean, I think it's an interesting question. I think let me get around to it by diverging for a minute. So I think, it's worth saying that it's rare, first of all, for the court to take up these emergency cases at all on the argument. So that's number one. The last time it happened was last year. Much lower profile case dealing with environmental regulations. It does happen, but it's very, very rare. When it does happen they usually give us a sense of what they're going to talk about, right? We usually get. If not a question presented, which is the term that's used in merits cases, we at least get a sense of, hey, guys, be prepared to talk about X, Y, Z. We did not get that here. And so in some ways, we're sort of all reading the tea leaves, trying to figure out exactly what this case is about. Is it about this birthright citizenship or is it about the injunction? It is about the junction, but the question you're getting at sort of raises this question of. In the back of their minds, how much are they thinking about the merits when they're thinking about the injunction and what these groups that are opposing the Trump administration point out is like, look, you know, one way this could turn out is that the court could limit the injunction to certain states that sued. Well, how does that work? You've got a certain state where you'd be entitled to a passport under a certain set of circumstances, but the next state over, it'd be an entirely different set the same set of circumstances but an entirely different outcome. You wouldn't be entitled to citizenship or a passport. The groups that are challenging this say that is just completely unworkable. There is something unique about citizenship. It's often been considered a national sort of standard or issue. And what these groups say is, look, if there's ever a time to do a nationwide injunction, it's in a situation like this.

We'll be right back.

So I hear you recently had a baby.

Yes, it's a girl.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

This is Dina. Now, that's not her real name. She asked us to use a pseudonym because her and her husband, who we're calling Henry, are worried about possible repercussions for speaking publicly. That's because they are both members of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, one of the groups who will find itself in front of the Supreme Court on Thursday.

Prior to moving here, we had a friendship back home, separated, then we reunited here, and we're like, yeah, we can make this work.

Dina and Henry came to the U.S. In 2018 and 2019 from Kenya as students and later went through the asylum process. They now both work in IT. Dina said she hadn't heard about birthright citizenship before coming to the US, but after becoming pregnant last year, it became a very pressing concern as she watched Trump win the White House for the second time last November.

I think I was three months pregnant at that time, and I just became so nervous and anxious about everything, and that is very detrimental when it comes to pregnancy. You're not supposed to have all these emotions going on. So I was really concerned about my whole pregnancy journey, plus all this. Every day is a new thing that you hear in the news, and it created a lot of fear for me a lot of anxiety. And not only for me, but I knew a lot of mothers who were pregnant or it created a lot fear for us.

So you had heard that Trump had wanted to end birthright citizenship as he was running for president, and yet you're a few months pregnant. Yeah. So I guess when you're going through that and Trump takes office in January, signs this executive order, did you ever consider leaving, or what were the options for you?

I'm limited with options. First of all, I'm running away from my country. So where else do I go? I can't go to Canada. I can go to Australia. It's a whole process for me. And I've found home here. This is where I've like created friendships. This is like my new home and I have nowhere else to go. So the executive order that impacting my child, She's going to be in the same position as well. And it's not fair at all. All the children that are being born, they are innocent of all these things that are going on politically. So it's like a right that is being taken away from them. They deserve to have that right of citizenship. So it is a very painful process to even think about, like your child doesn't have an identity.

'After taking the Trump administration to court, the Asylum Seekers Advocacy Project and other groups won a nationwide preliminary injunction in February. Dina said it brought her a sense of peace, but she couldn't fully exhale. Again, the injunction was only temporary. And then in April, Dina gave birth. Mother and baby are healthy after an emergency C-section. Her daughter has a birth certificate, but for Dina, the question of her daughter's citizenship is still unsettled.

Will they decide to just say that, no, all these kids don't deserve to have the American citizenship or strip that off from them or still let them have the citizenship?

You're worried it could be applied retroactively, even though...

Yeah.

Your baby's already been born.

Yeah, mhm.

I mean, have you thought about what would happen or what you would do? Should that come to pass?

I don't know. I try not to think about it because it's, it's just scary. I, I don' know how, yeah, it, it bothers me a lot. And just to think of how this country has been really helpful to me through my education, work wise, I want my child to be able to enjoy that and other children to be about to enjoy the rights. Of every, like any other American citizenship has, because coming from a country where we don't have a lot of the things that the American people have, it's a privilege. So I want my child to be able to enjoy that.

I feel as though the child we brought into this world will be branded an outcast. An outcast because they can identify with any country, they can identity with any kind of people. And so we feel as if this EO goes into effect, then we might create in this country a group of people who won't have any kind identity. I feel us though their right to exist has been taken away from them, to put it lightly. And it bears down on me as an individual, because I think about my child having to go through the process of going to school, going to college, trying to get a loan, all those kind of things. Maybe one day trying to travel. And the fact that they wouldn't be identified by any kind of country, any kind of state, what does that mean that they would be sent away to some country? I don't know where. Like, where do they belong?

If all these legal challenges play out and it ends up that your child is able to get US citizenship, do you think they'll still feel like an outcast in some way just because of how this played out and all the discourse around it?

Yes, I mean, look, it's a blemish. It's a blamish on someone's identity. It's blemished on someone race. It's blamished on a group of people that come into this world. Our child didn't opt to come in. We opted to have a child. And even if the child doesn't ever know about the blemishes, as parents, we'll always feel as though the child that we brought into this was treated as an outcast just because, you know, someone feels that an immigrant like myself bandana. A representative of a broad spectrum of immigrants that come into this country and opt not to do the right thing.

You want them to be proud of being born in the US.

Yes, I really want them to be proud of being an American, proud of their country, serve their country. You know, take them through the process of what happened for you to, to have even this, right? And it's, yeah, we don't take it for granted at all.

You know, not all of us came into this country to have our children born as citizens. You know David, I'll put it to you that Dean and I opted to have a child three years after having gotten into marriage. If our objective was that we wanted our children to become US citizens, then we would have had kids the day we got married.

'Right, because this is the argument from President Trump that some people come here for so-called birth tourism.

And the honest truth is that there's those who do that. That is the honest, plain truth. But Dean and I don't fall in that category. We came into this country a year apart, 2018, 2019. If the objective, David, was that we would come into this county to get American kids, then we would have done that many years ago. But we got married and we planned our life out because we figured that the right thing to do is to plan your life out.

I think we are wrongly categorized as illegal, you know. Yeah, I came here as a student. I got paroled at the border. Of course, I had to take a plane, go through all the security checks and all. So categorizing everybody in the same category is not really fair. Yes, we have some immigrants who have come and unfortunately done some things that are against the law. We understand that, but. That stereotype is not fair at all to just put us in the same category. We just want the Supreme Court to show us favor and think about the children that we are bringing into this world. They're innocent and we just want a good future for our children, just like our parents, they always want the best for us. So we also want the better for our kids. So that's why we are fighting so hard for that.

Well, yeah, I don't want to take up too much more of your time, but I really appreciate you both opening up and sharing all this with me. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, David, we thank you for, you know, highlighting this situation and our hope and prayer is that, you know, the right thing is done. Whichever way it goes, David. It's going to be fine. That's how I put it. I'm very, I'm, very optimistic about life. Whichever it goes David, it's going be fine

One thing is a production of CNN audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Matt Martinez, Felicia Patinkin, and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan DeZula is our technical director and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Mark Duffy, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pessaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Emily Williams and Wendy Brundage. We'll be back on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.