These pregnant moms eye Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship arguments with fear

Mónica got pregnant last year around the same time President Donald Trump was elected to a second term. And that is when her race against the calendar began.

Mónica got pregnant last year around the same time President Donald Trump was elected to a second term. And that is when her race against the calendar began. The Venezuelan national, who is in the United States legally but with temporary status, is terrified that Trump’s long-promised effort to curb birthright citizenship will be allowed to take effect before her baby boy is due in August – an outcome that could effectively leave him stateless. “There’s been a lot of fear,” the South Carolinian told CNN. “Every day it’s a new restriction, and we don’t know what will happen.” Mónica asked to be identified in this story by her first name because she is concerned about possible repercussions for speaking publicly about her situation. When the Supreme Court gathers Thursday to hear oral argument in a high-profile emergency appeal involving Trump’s birthright citizenship order, the justices will technically be considering a procedural question about whether lower courts overstepped their authority by blocking the president’s efforts nationwide. But the court’s answer to that question will have enormous on-the-ground consequences, even for people – like Mónica – who are in the United States legally. Allowing the administration to temporarily enforce the order Trump signed on his first day of his second term could set up a dynamic in which a baby born in New Jersey would be able to access a passport or obtain a Social Security number, but a child born into the same circumstances across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania could not.