The 14th Amendment was adopted shortly after the Civil War to affirm that formerly enslaved individuals were citizens of both the United States and the states in which they lived.<\/p>\n
In the years since, it has been broadly interpreted to grant automatic citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. However, the Supreme Court has never issued a definitive ruling on the scope of this interpretation. That said, in 1895, the Court held<\/a>\u00a0that children born to legal resident aliens are American citizens.<\/p>\n CBS News reported<\/a> that after Trump issued his executive order in January, more than half a dozen lawsuits were filed in federal courts across the country, including in Washington, Maryland, and Massachusetts.<\/p>\n Lower courts blocked the order\u2019s implementation, and federal appeals courts in San Francisco, Boston, and Richmond, Virginia, upheld these rulings.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Justice Department filed emergency appeals of the three decisions with the Supreme Court in mid-March and asked it to limit enforcement of the birthright citizenship order to 28 states and individuals who are not involved in the ongoing cases,\u201d CBS News noted.<\/p>\n The nation\u2019s highest court issued an order on Thursday scheduling oral arguments in the case for May 15. As The Hill noted<\/a>, holding a hearing that late in the term\u2014set to conclude in June\u2014is an uncommon move.<\/p>\n