A Colorado legal scholar is weighing in on the case that could upend life in the United States for millions of people.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the constitutionality of President Donald Trump's executive order declaring that children born to parents who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily, are not American citizens. It is commonly called "birthright citizenship."
The birthright citizenship order, which the president signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration's broad crackdown on immigration.
Denver7 anchor Shannon Ogden spoke with P. (Deep) Gulasekaram, professor of law and director of the Byron R. White Center for the Student of American Constitutional Law at University of Colorado. Professor Gulasekaram said Trump's order would upend more than 125 years of understanding that the Constitution's 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with the narrow exceptions for children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
"It has the possibility of creating hundreds of thousands of stateless individuals and depriving babies born in the United States of the ability to remain in the United States, to be educated in the United States and the possibility to be taken away from family in the United States," said Gulasekaram.
National Politics
Supreme Court will take up case on Trump's birthright citizenship changes
Gulasekaram explained that the Trump executive order argues that it is upholding the original intent of the 14th Amendment.
"If they are saying this was always the interpretation, this is what it meant from the jump, then we're talking about generations of people who all of the sudden go, 'Oh. We were never citizens,'" asked Ogden.
"That's right. We're talking about millions and millions of people," replied Gulasekaram.
In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions.
"You are talking about something that upends the way in which citizenship has been conferred and the settled expectations of the people of the United States for not just decades but centuries," adds Gulasekaram.
The high court will hear arguments next year and will likely hand down a decision by the end of June 2026.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser joined 21 other attorneys general in a lawsuit attempting to block the president's executive order banning birthright citizenship.
Twenty-four Republican-led states and 27 Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are backing the administration.
