Wisconsin AG ‘Confident’ U.S. Supreme Court Will Uphold Birthright Citizenship

Attorney General Josh Kaul speaks Wednesday, March 1, 2023, at the Milwaukee Crime Lab in Milwaukee, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

Wisconsin’s Attorney General Josh Kaul says he’s “very confident,” the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold birthright citizenship but said it’s concerning the high court even agreed to hear the case.

Earlier this year, Kaul joined two dozen Democratic state attorneys general in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the high-profile case. That brief says the nation’s Constitution makes clear that children born in the United States automatically get U.S. citizenship.

That’s despite an executive order from Republican President Donald Trump seeking to deny that right to children born to parents without permanent legal status.

So far, lower courts have blocked Trump’s order from taking effect.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to the order Wednesday. Kaul told WPR’s Wisconsin Today he’s glad that even conservative justices showed “overwhelming skepticism” in response to the president’s position.

“What the Trump administration did here just flouts precedent,” Kaul told “Wisconsin Today” co-host Kate Archer Kent. “It flouts the language of the Constitution, and it would fundamentally change what it means to be an American.”

Since the late 1800s, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has said “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

The Trump administration has used the clause referencing “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to argue against birthright citizenship in some circumstances.

That’s despite courts upholding birthright citizenship for more than a century and a half.

“It is the plain language of our Constitution,” Kaul said of birthright citizenship. “If we can’t even uphold that language, that’s a real threat to the rule of law.”

The attorney general said it’s “unfortunate” that the case made it arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The fact that the Supreme Court even took this for argument, and heard argument on it shows that Donald Trump has been able to exert his authority in a way that has caused courts to take up arguments that really aren’t serious,” Kaul told Wisconsin Today. “That’s concerning when it comes to thinking about the rule of law.”

Sen. Johnson: the Constitution ‘is not a suicide pact’

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has said he was “disappointed” by the apparent skepticism of justices in response to the Trump administration’s arguments.

In an interview Thursday with Fox News, the Republican Senator from Oshkosh seemed to suggest that, even if birthright citizenship is laid out in the Constitution, the effects of birthright citizenship are destructive.

“I mean, this is using the Constitution, you know, it’s not a suicide pact,” Johnson told Fox News Anchor Maria Bartiromo. “Maybe their ruling will be on the law and on the Constitution. But you have to look at the bigger picture here.”

Johnson accused China of using birth tourism to undermine the United States. The term refers to pregnant woman who travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children can get U.S. citizenship.

“Birthright citizenship tourism — this is going to destroy this country,” Johnson said. “Creating all these millions of voters, they will obviously not be voting in the best interest of America. So we have to understand exactly what the left is doing, what Communist China is doing, and we need to act now to prevent that.”

An estimate from the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports lowering immigration levels, found that temporary visitors to the U.S. gave birth to about 70,000 babies in 2023. Other groups have said figures circulated by the CIS are overcounts.

Wisconsin AG ‘confident’ US Supreme Court will uphold birthright citizenship was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.