Divided Supreme Court on full display heading into birthright citizenship hearing

The Supreme Court that will hear a case over birthright citizenship this week has been acting less like a group seeking consensus and more like nine justices clinging to their own interests.

The Supreme Court that will hear a case over birthright citizenship this week has been acting less like a group seeking consensus and more like nine justices clinging to their own interests. Ruptures have occurred in litigation arising from President Donald Trump’s effort to transform the federal government and remake America. But more broadly, the fractured court has been evident in the justices’ separate opinions, behavior on the bench, and public appearances. Justices have increasingly gone their own way in memoirs and books, too. As a result, the court may be less inclined to speak with one voice. The riven justices could, as the country hurtles toward a possible constitutional showdown, risk appearing like yet another set of political actors, unable to meet head-on threats to the rule of law. Lower court judges have found over and over that the Trump administration has rejected statutory and constitutional guarantees, including, as one judge observed last week, “that neither citizen nor alien be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Thursday’s hearing in the white marble and heavy red drape setting will offer the first Supreme Court oral arguments over any second-term Trump initiative since Chief Justice John Roberts swore in the president on January 20. The birthright citizenship case could become a platform for the agendas of individual justices. Already, the focus of “friend of the court” briefs varies widely as outside groups – from constitutional scholars and legal historians to the Chamber of Commerce and Restaurant Law Center – see the case as a catalyst for their respective issues.