President Donald Trump is expected to lose his appeal to uphold an executive order revoking birthright citizenship, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. This prediction follows a ruling by a Reagan-appointed federal judge in Seattle, who blocked Trump’s order and criticized his legal team.
The judge labeled the denial of passports to American-born children without citizen or permanent resident parents as “a blatantly unconstitutional order.” “Kind of just assume this is going to end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, right?” Tapper asked.
“I’m sure it will, Jake,” Honig responded. “And I’m sure Donald Trump will lose this in the appeals court and in the U.S. Supreme Court because, at its core, this is really not a liberal versus conservative, Democrat versus Republican issue. This is just a ‘Can you read the law?’ issue.”
Honig laid out the legal foundation that makes Trump’s order unlikely to succeed. “Section One of the 14th Amendment … says any person who is born or naturalized in the United States and subject to U.S. jurisdiction is a citizen. On top of that, Congress passed a law in 1940 and then reaffirmed it in 1952, saying the same thing.
On top of all that, there was a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1898. But it’s still good law, essentially saying the same thing. A person who was born here of noncitizen parents is a citizen.” Honig dismissed arguments from Trump’s legal team that birthright citizenship is bad policy or harmful to national security. “That doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s a constitutional provision.
It’s not about whether it serves us well or not. It’s in the Constitution. It’s been reaffirmed by Congress, reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. And I think Trump will fail here.” The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, was intended to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved individuals and their descendants. Its interpretation has been reaffirmed multiple times, making it a cornerstone of U.S. constitutional law.
As Trump’s legal battle unfolds, experts predict a clear outcome rooted in precedent. The blocked order marks another significant challenge to Trump’s agenda, with courts consistently emphasizing the supremacy of constitutional protections over executive actions.