Reporting by Will Hofmann and Kara Fohner, Asheville Citizen Times
In Asheville, local immigrant rights advocates and attorneys paused to recognize the enormity of the June 30 Supreme Court’s split decision upholding birthright citizenship, which is a blow to President Donald Trump and conservative lawmakers who sought to peel back elements of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
In a 6-3 decision on Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s executive order that aimed to revoke citizenship from babies born to parents who are temporarily or unlawfully in the United States. Five justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson — agreed the order violated the 14th Amendment. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that it only ran afoul of a 1952 immigration law. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
Across the country, national civil rights advocacy groups lauded the decision. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero called the birthright citizenship ruling “one of the most important cases of the past 100 years.” The organization had represented several expectant parents whose children would’ve lost citizenship under Trump’s order.
On social media, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein lauded the decision as giving “us the chance to celebrate the rich fabric of our nation that has always made us great” ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Asheville civil rights advocates said they’re relieved about the case, which had it been decided differently could have upended birthright citizenship — a law that had been settled for over 125 years. Born in the United States to Mexican immigrants, Asheville resident and attorney Leonel Gonzalez Jr., 34, said he is breathing easier after the ruling. He was closely following the attempt to abolish birthright citizenship.
“I’m an immigration attorney, and so part of it was also because of my work, but also because it’s very personal being first-generation in the U.S.,” Gonzalez said. “I just never thought that there would be a situation where my citizenship or people born under similar circumstances as me, their citizenship would be questioned.”
Though the executive order might not have impacted him, he was worried for others across the country.
“My understanding is that the executive order was not to be retroactive. I would have been OK, but people in similar situations moving forward would have been the ones affected,” he said. “It’s just troubling that these people are Americans, and they would have their citizenship questioned.”
He said that the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling was too close for comfort, particularly given Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurrence.
“If you read Kavanaugh’s concurrence, he didn’t really talk about the constitutionality of whether that was permissible, so it’s really more like a 5-4 decision,” Gonzalez said.
“The irony of this happening right before Fourth of July and the 250th anniversary of this country is not lost on me,” he said.
In a June 30 statement to the Citizen Times, Land of the Sky United Church of Christ Rev. Sara Wilcox, a member of the Western North Carolina-based Faith Communities for Immigration Justice, described the decision as not “solely about immigrants, though immigrants are at the heart of this matter.” Wilcox said she was prepared to stay on guard.
“This is a win for the Constitution that is being actively reconfigured through the judicial activism of this Court. We would be wise to continue to demand our Constitutional rights, specifically the 1st and 4th and 14th Amendments, that are very much still being jeopardized by this Court,” Wilcox wrote to the Citizen Times.
Trump took to social media June 30 deriding the birthright citizenship ruling as a “too bad for our country,” and encouraged Republicans in Congress to pass legislation unwinding birthright citizenship, a suggestion that was mimicked by multiple state and national conservative lawmakers. Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion, said Congress could establish exceptions to birthright citizenship, though the position did not reflect the majority of the court, but left open the door for potentially revisiting the issue.
Kara Fohner is the Public Safety Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Email her at kfohner@usatodayco.com.
Will Hofmann is the Growth and Development Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Got a tip? Email him at WHofmann@citizentimes.com or message will_hofmann.01 on Signal.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times.
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