Trump live updates: President vows to keep fighting against birthright citizenship as he readies for America 250 events – UK Times

Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of states that enacted laws to allow for late mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day – so long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

The ruling was a loss for Trump, who has railed against mail-in ballot voting.

Even though the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, the National Immigration Project said the relief feels “tempered and temporary” as the court allows the Trump administration to implement other restrictive policies.

“Since the Supreme Court took this case, we have been holding our breath – today, we exhale, but our relief feels tempered and temporary,” Sirine Shebaya, the executive director of the National Immigration Project, said.

“This executive order was never really about citizenship policy. It was about power—about testing whether a president can simply declare a constitutional provision means something other than what it says, and dare the courts to stop him. Today they did. But this should have been the easiest case the Court heard all year. The fact that this was a fight at all should trouble us as much as the outcome relieves us.’

Shebaya pointed to dissents from four justices who argued they should have allowed President Donald Trump to restrict birthright citizenship via an executive order. She also pointed to other decisions this week that allowed the administration to revoke Temporary Protected Status from Haitians and Syrians as well as a decision that allows the administration to implement a turn-back policy at the US border.

“We are watching this country move, decision by decision, toward becoming an authoritarian, white supremacist autocracy. Today’s decision lets us hold on to increasingly slippery hope that we are not there yet.”

Riley Gaines, a conservative activist who became outspoken against transgender women and girls competing in sports, called the Supreme Court’s decision a “a victory.”

Gaines made headlines in 2022 when she tied with Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, for fifth place in their collegiate swimming competition. She became an advocate for banning transgender women and girls from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams, leading the “Save Women’s Sports” movement.

“The law of the land now reflects reality and common sense,” Gaines wrote on X. “Insane that this requires celebrating, but it’s a victory nonetheless.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship ruling, the president congratulated the Chinese President Xi Jinping and China on its “WIN” – trolling the court’s decision.

“I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a former undocumented immigrant who now chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship – declaring that Trump was wrong to try to get rid of it.

“Trump tried to erase one of our nation’s clearest constitutional guarantees, and he failed. We won, and he failed. We’re right, and he’s wrong,” Espaillat said.

“We will not be held to a different standard. That our children who were born here are U.S. born children, irregardless of our status and that we belong and we deserve to have all the rights and privileges extended to all Americans by the U.S. Constitution.”

The Supreme Court lifted restrictions on how much a national political party can spend in coordination with an individual candidate for advertising or other expenses.

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority of the court said the spending cap violated the First Amendment – based on the interpretation that political spending is a form of speech.

Political parties were previously restricted on how much they could spend in coordination with a campaign; the limit varied based on House and Senate elections.

But Republican committees, joined by then-Senator JD Vance, argued the cap on spending violated a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued in his dissent to the birthright citizenship ruling that Congress could redefine who a U.S. citizen is, thus bypassing the declaration made in the Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday.

Kavanaugh said while he does not think Trump’s executive order conflicts with the Constitution, he does believe it conflicts with a federal law that defines who a U.S. citizen is

“Congress could – consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment– amend [the law] or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country,” Kavanaugh said.

After the ruling was issued, Trump demanded that Congress begin work to end birthright citizenship for all.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the majority opinion in the birthright citizenship case,

Thomas argued that the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution was meant only to grant citizenship to Black Americans domiciled in the United States, but who had been denied citizenship in Dred Scott v. Stanford.

He said it was not meant to extend to temporary visitors or undocumented immigrants.

“The Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support,” Thomas wrote.

In a separate dissent, Alito argued the Court should have used the ruling to rein in illegal immigration.

“We should not adopt an erroneous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment simply out of fear of the consequences of “rocking the boat” or as a reaction to current immigration policy,” Alito wrote.

In another dissent, Gorusch argued the court should have ruled narrowly, allowing some of Trump’s executive order to apply to the children of foreigners who are in the U.S. temporarily.