BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP HEADS TO THE SUPREME COURT And I'm not EXACTLY sure what will come out of this because this hearing is more about procedural stuff when it comes to district courts issuing stays that check the President of the United States's power. The Pacific Legal Foundation says Trump vs CASA is about "a Trump-era Executive Order aimed at ending birthright citizenship for children born to unlawful or non-permanent immigrants. Lower courts blocked the policy nationwide, not just for the plaintiffs, and now the Justices will weigh in on whether courts have the authority to issue such sweeping injunctions." What will this mean for birthright citizenship overall? I've got Joe Luppino-Esposito from the Pacific Legal Foundation at 12:30 on it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Supreme Court is hearing a case called Trump Vicasa,
and it has something to do with birthright citizenship. But
I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, I read a
lot this morning, and I'm still not quite sure exactly
if this is procedural or if this will give us
any clarity on birthright citizenship. But of course, you know,
I'm going to find a guest who can help us
(00:20):
understand all of this, and i'd like to welcome to
the show Joe Lepido Esposito. He is the legal policy
Deputy director at the Pacific Legal Foundation. Joe, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
First of all, yeah, thanks for having me. So you
just heard me.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Admit, I'm not clear exactly what is going to be decided,
but it looks like to me that this is a
procedural question about the ability of district courts to issue
a national stay, not so much about whether or not
birthright citizenship exists for I legal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That's absolutely right, that's really the core of what they're deciding. Now.
You know, the arguments this morning definitely got into the
case on the marriage as well, because that's part of
the conversation is well, you know, are there certain situations
where perhaps the government is just so wrong on the
law that of course the nationwide injunction would make sense.
So in some ways the discussion was there, and you know,
(01:13):
frankly on a lot of the president under this area
of the law that would be correct, that this is
sort of against what we've seen in legal president prior.
But the real core question is that procedural one. And
that's what they spent most of the two and a
half or so or so hours today arguing about.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So they're actually arguing about whether or not a district judge. Now,
district judge important but not in the grand scheme of
the federal system. I mean, that's kind of small potatoes.
And what we've seen since the beginning of the Trump
administration is Democrats using these district judges to issue stays
that they don't like for policies they don't like.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So will this settle.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
All of those issues if they come back, let's just say,
the justice to come back and say no, a federal
judge can only impact what's in their district. Does that
mean that all of these other sort of district rulings
will go out the window as well?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You know, there's definitely a high probability of that. You know,
it's really going to depend on what kind of decision
they make, because you know, they've talked about a lot
of different ways this can be done. So for the
ones already on the books, you know, they've consolidated a
few cases here that had the same problem. I mean,
it was all around birth right citizenship. But essentially it's
the same exact problem in all these cases that there
was a nationwide injunction. So if they're able to actually
(02:27):
reverse that piece of the puzzle, that would probably make
force us other judges to issue new orders and do
them just either for their district or perhaps for the
circuit if they get appealed up. So it's going to
be very limited if they can do it that way.
On the other hand, there's one proposal that sort of
came out within oral argument, and this may or may
not make it into a final decision, but one idea
(02:47):
was that, well, what if these are brought as class
action suits? Then that would make sense because then you
could have a class action suit based on people all
across the country. This is fairly common in that regard,
and therefore this would be how you would would stop
the case from moving forward in a nationwide injunction. You know,
in the same way that there were some nationwide injunctions
during the Biden administration when there was the student loan
(03:09):
forgiveness plan, right that the loan cancelation does happened as well.
But then it goes again back to the question of, well,
should we be looking at the merits and what is
actually happening here? Is this something that can be reversed?
Is it something that needs this emergency procedure to actually
be stopped? And then you get back to the substance
of question. So again, you know, I'd hate to be
a lawyer on this, but it really does depend. It
(03:30):
looks like some of the underlying case and that's what
we may see in the final decision here.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
So let's talk about that. Does specific legal foundation have
an opinion about whether or not there is the possibility
that an illegal immigrant should be able to come here,
have a baby and have that child be a citizen.
And I know that there was a case a very
long time ago that involved two Chinese nationals, but it's
my understanding they had some kind of legal status they
(03:56):
were either here. I don't know what this is. Do
or you didn't have to have some kind of status
in the day. But has it ever been decided that
if someone has come to the country in a manner
that is unofficial right and then they have a child,
has that question ever been answered by the courts? And
what is it going to take or what case should
we look at to possibly answer that question?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
If no, Yeah, that's a very good question. So all
the legal president on this, because we don't have anything
specific to this exact point, so it's hard to look
to one specific case, but in general, the president, like
you said, the one case regarding the Chinese nationals was
one where someone was given citizenship under the birthright means.
(04:38):
So it's really a big, interesting open question. You know,
we don't take a specific position on this is not
exactly in our wheelhouse, but what we do look at
are these issues when it comes to the separation of
powers and what the power of the president and the
Congress and the judiciary should be. So this is one
where it really kind of hits all of those points
because somebody arguments we heard today was sort of this
(05:00):
feeling of from some of the justices of well Congress
should be stepping up and doing their job if this
is something that they want, obviously on behalf of the president.
This listener general was arguing that now the president does
have this power, this is within his wheelhouse. And then
other folks that were opposing the president were saying, you know,
this is actually right the right place of the judiciary
to be taking a stand here and really saying, this
(05:22):
is where we put the brakes on things. It's our
duty in the Constitution to stop overreached by the executive
or by the Congress, if that may be the case,
but in this case the executive. So it's sort of
this perfect little capsule of a separation of powers problem.
So in that regard, we're very interested to see the
outcome because oh yeah, a lot of different ways this
can go, and we haven't quite figured out from their
oral arguments today that you know, we can see there's
(05:44):
a split, but we're not sure how they're going to
split this baby.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Well, and I like to remind my listeners. My listeners
are overwhelmingly they lean right, and I would like to
remind them before you say Trump should have the ability
to expand powers. However, he once remember our team is
not always going to be in charge, right, So you
have to say about it, if you put the shoe
on the other foot, some of the expansions that I've
seen i'm very comfortable with. I'm not going to lie.
I think that there has been too much sort of
(06:09):
corruption coming from Congress and the executive brand. It's all
been made into a little bit of a sesspool because
Congress keeps shoving their duties off onto the presidency. So
there's some stuff that I don't mind, some stuff that
I think is an overreach, but I want it to
be balanced the way it was intended by the founding father.
So I'm very interested to see how this all plays out.
(06:31):
And you just said, we really don't know based on
the questioning, like where's the money going right now? Is
what I'm asking, Joe.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yes, So you know, I actually you bring up a
good point. So to answer your direct question there, I mean,
I think right now the money is on some sort
of limitation on nationwide injunction. I'm not sure what it
looks like, but I think the idea that disretchardges are
doing this sort of almost in a knee jerk way
in some of these cases, Yeah, in areas where it
doesn't really make sense I think they may sort of
(06:58):
put some sort of guidelines, if you will, out whether
it's a formal test or what it might be, so
it would be on things. So again, you know, perhaps
I'm showing my bias and the cases that were showing.
But in something like the student loan case, if the
loans will be forgiven on Saturday and they file this
thing on Friday, well gee, we better get this thing
taking care of tonight if we think there's a chance
that they're going to lose the case. Otherwise, once I
(07:19):
gets paid out, it's gone. Now. In this case, could
they say, well, you know, if someone's born tomorrow and
we have to decide if they are a citizen or not,
is that an immediate need. I don't know if it
is right. I mean, somebody could be granted citizenship if
it's an open question, you know, if they've just been born.
I don't think that's to worry about collecting those security
quite yet. And you know, there's a few things that
(07:40):
probably could be put on hold so that I think
might be part of a test that comes in here
is how quickly do you need to do it? And
then also the standing of the people who are coming
before the court. So again they brought up this issue
of a class action suit. If you can actually get
a class together on it, that maybe makes sense to
do a national wide injunction just to sort of play
it safe. So that might be a guideline they get here.
(08:00):
But you know, to your greater point, I think that
it's a very important one. It really depends on who
has the ball in their court. Like I said, we've
seen cases before where we were happy to see a
major wide in junction because that's what we wanted, but
in other cases we might not be as happy about it.
I think. Overall, I think for people on the right
side of the aisle, the one sort of positive thing
(08:22):
through all of this is we will find out, because
of the testing of the limits strengthly of the Trump
administration of what executive power should be. We'll find out
exactly where those lines are, and those will have to
hold to the next administration, no matter who they are,
whether it's jd Vance or if it's Peak Blue to Jets,
it doesn't matter. Well, you're going to know where those
lines are, and that's going to be an important piece
of really solving a lot of the constitutional questions we
(08:44):
have reduring separation of power. So I think on the whole,
you know, like you said, somebod your listeners might be
liking some of these things that the court may say,
or an overreach. Well that's all well and good, because
I think for the most part, if that's the limiting
government power and limiting the power of the executives, it's
probably overall a good thing. Anyway, Amen to that.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Joe Lupino Esposito from the Pacific Legal Foundation, Thanks so
much for your time and expertise today. Obviously, when does
this ruling comes out?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
When? So we should probably expect it sometime at the
end of June. There's a chance they would do it
sooner because of sort of the depending issues and the
timeliness of it, but most likely we're looking at the
end of June. All right, thanks so much. Maybe we'll
talk again then, Joe, absolutely all right, Thank you,
The Supreme Court is hearing a case called Trump Vicasa,
and it has something to do with birthright citizenship. But
I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, I read a
lot this morning, and I'm still not quite sure exactly
if this is procedural or if this will give us
any clarity on birthright citizenship. But of course, you know,
I'm going to find a guest who can help us
(00:20):
understand all of this, and i'd like to welcome to
the show Joe Lepido Esposito. He is the legal policy
Deputy director at the Pacific Legal Foundation. Joe, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
First of all, yeah, thanks for having me. So you
just heard me.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Admit, I'm not clear exactly what is going to be decided,
but it looks like to me that this is a
procedural question about the ability of district courts to issue
a national stay, not so much about whether or not
birthright citizenship exists for I legal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That's absolutely right, that's really the core of what they're deciding. Now.
You know, the arguments this morning definitely got into the
case on the marriage as well, because that's part of
the conversation is well, you know, are there certain situations
where perhaps the government is just so wrong on the
law that of course the nationwide injunction would make sense.
So in some ways the discussion was there, and you know,
(01:13):
frankly on a lot of the president under this area
of the law that would be correct, that this is
sort of against what we've seen in legal president prior.
But the real core question is that procedural one. And
that's what they spent most of the two and a
half or so or so hours today arguing about.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So they're actually arguing about whether or not a district judge. Now,
district judge important but not in the grand scheme of
the federal system. I mean, that's kind of small potatoes.
And what we've seen since the beginning of the Trump
administration is Democrats using these district judges to issue stays
that they don't like for policies they don't like.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So will this settle.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
All of those issues if they come back, let's just say,
the justice to come back and say no, a federal
judge can only impact what's in their district. Does that
mean that all of these other sort of district rulings
will go out the window as well?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You know, there's definitely a high probability of that. You know,
it's really going to depend on what kind of decision
they make, because you know, they've talked about a lot
of different ways this can be done. So for the
ones already on the books, you know, they've consolidated a
few cases here that had the same problem. I mean,
it was all around birth right citizenship. But essentially it's
the same exact problem in all these cases that there
was a nationwide injunction. So if they're able to actually
(02:27):
reverse that piece of the puzzle, that would probably make
force us other judges to issue new orders and do
them just either for their district or perhaps for the
circuit if they get appealed up. So it's going to
be very limited if they can do it that way.
On the other hand, there's one proposal that sort of
came out within oral argument, and this may or may
not make it into a final decision, but one idea
(02:47):
was that, well, what if these are brought as class
action suits? Then that would make sense because then you
could have a class action suit based on people all
across the country. This is fairly common in that regard,
and therefore this would be how you would would stop
the case from moving forward in a nationwide injunction. You know,
in the same way that there were some nationwide injunctions
during the Biden administration when there was the student loan
(03:09):
forgiveness plan, right that the loan cancelation does happened as well.
But then it goes again back to the question of, well,
should we be looking at the merits and what is
actually happening here? Is this something that can be reversed?
Is it something that needs this emergency procedure to actually
be stopped? And then you get back to the substance
of question. So again, you know, I'd hate to be
a lawyer on this, but it really does depend. It
(03:30):
looks like some of the underlying case and that's what
we may see in the final decision here.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
So let's talk about that. Does specific legal foundation have
an opinion about whether or not there is the possibility
that an illegal immigrant should be able to come here,
have a baby and have that child be a citizen.
And I know that there was a case a very
long time ago that involved two Chinese nationals, but it's
my understanding they had some kind of legal status they
(03:56):
were either here. I don't know what this is. Do
or you didn't have to have some kind of status
in the day. But has it ever been decided that
if someone has come to the country in a manner
that is unofficial right and then they have a child,
has that question ever been answered by the courts? And
what is it going to take or what case should
we look at to possibly answer that question?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
If no, Yeah, that's a very good question. So all
the legal president on this, because we don't have anything
specific to this exact point, so it's hard to look
to one specific case, but in general, the president, like
you said, the one case regarding the Chinese nationals was
one where someone was given citizenship under the birthright means.
(04:38):
So it's really a big, interesting open question. You know,
we don't take a specific position on this is not
exactly in our wheelhouse, but what we do look at
are these issues when it comes to the separation of
powers and what the power of the president and the
Congress and the judiciary should be. So this is one
where it really kind of hits all of those points
because somebody arguments we heard today was sort of this
(05:00):
feeling of from some of the justices of well Congress
should be stepping up and doing their job if this
is something that they want, obviously on behalf of the president.
This listener general was arguing that now the president does
have this power, this is within his wheelhouse. And then
other folks that were opposing the president were saying, you know,
this is actually right the right place of the judiciary
to be taking a stand here and really saying, this
(05:22):
is where we put the brakes on things. It's our
duty in the Constitution to stop overreached by the executive
or by the Congress, if that may be the case,
but in this case the executive. So it's sort of
this perfect little capsule of a separation of powers problem.
So in that regard, we're very interested to see the
outcome because oh yeah, a lot of different ways this
can go, and we haven't quite figured out from their
oral arguments today that you know, we can see there's
(05:44):
a split, but we're not sure how they're going to
split this baby.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Well, and I like to remind my listeners. My listeners
are overwhelmingly they lean right, and I would like to
remind them before you say Trump should have the ability
to expand powers. However, he once remember our team is
not always going to be in charge, right, So you
have to say about it, if you put the shoe
on the other foot, some of the expansions that I've
seen i'm very comfortable with. I'm not going to lie.
I think that there has been too much sort of
(06:09):
corruption coming from Congress and the executive brand. It's all
been made into a little bit of a sesspool because
Congress keeps shoving their duties off onto the presidency. So
there's some stuff that I don't mind, some stuff that
I think is an overreach, but I want it to
be balanced the way it was intended by the founding father.
So I'm very interested to see how this all plays out.
(06:31):
And you just said, we really don't know based on
the questioning, like where's the money going right now? Is
what I'm asking, Joe.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yes, So you know, I actually you bring up a
good point. So to answer your direct question there, I mean,
I think right now the money is on some sort
of limitation on nationwide injunction. I'm not sure what it
looks like, but I think the idea that disretchardges are
doing this sort of almost in a knee jerk way
in some of these cases, Yeah, in areas where it
doesn't really make sense I think they may sort of
(06:58):
put some sort of guidelines, if you will, out whether
it's a formal test or what it might be, so
it would be on things. So again, you know, perhaps
I'm showing my bias and the cases that were showing.
But in something like the student loan case, if the
loans will be forgiven on Saturday and they file this
thing on Friday, well gee, we better get this thing
taking care of tonight if we think there's a chance
that they're going to lose the case. Otherwise, once I
(07:19):
gets paid out, it's gone. Now. In this case, could
they say, well, you know, if someone's born tomorrow and
we have to decide if they are a citizen or not,
is that an immediate need. I don't know if it
is right. I mean, somebody could be granted citizenship if
it's an open question, you know, if they've just been born.
I don't think that's to worry about collecting those security
quite yet. And you know, there's a few things that
(07:40):
probably could be put on hold so that I think
might be part of a test that comes in here
is how quickly do you need to do it? And
then also the standing of the people who are coming
before the court. So again they brought up this issue
of a class action suit. If you can actually get
a class together on it, that maybe makes sense to
do a national wide injunction just to sort of play
it safe. So that might be a guideline they get here.
(08:00):
But you know, to your greater point, I think that
it's a very important one. It really depends on who
has the ball in their court. Like I said, we've
seen cases before where we were happy to see a
major wide in junction because that's what we wanted, but
in other cases we might not be as happy about it.
I think. Overall, I think for people on the right
side of the aisle, the one sort of positive thing
(08:22):
through all of this is we will find out, because
of the testing of the limits strengthly of the Trump
administration of what executive power should be. We'll find out
exactly where those lines are, and those will have to
hold to the next administration, no matter who they are,
whether it's jd Vance or if it's Peak Blue to Jets,
it doesn't matter. Well, you're going to know where those
lines are, and that's going to be an important piece
of really solving a lot of the constitutional questions we
(08:44):
have reduring separation of power. So I think on the whole,
you know, like you said, somebod your listeners might be
liking some of these things that the court may say,
or an overreach. Well that's all well and good, because
I think for the most part, if that's the limiting
government power and limiting the power of the executives, it's
probably overall a good thing. Anyway, Amen to that.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Joe Lupino Esposito from the Pacific Legal Foundation, Thanks so
much for your time and expertise today. Obviously, when does
this ruling comes out?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
When? So we should probably expect it sometime at the
end of June. There's a chance they would do it
sooner because of sort of the depending issues and the
timeliness of it, but most likely we're looking at the
end of June. All right, thanks so much. Maybe we'll
talk again then, Joe, absolutely all right, Thank you,
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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