President Donald Trump announced he will be in attendance at the Supreme Court on Wednesday when justices hear arguments in the case challenging his executive order on birthright citizenship.
Justices are set to hear one hour of arguments on Tuesday in the case of Trump v. Barbara, in which petitioners are challenging Trump’s executive order interpreting the 14th Amendment not to include children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.
“I’m going,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, “because I have listened to this argument for so long.
“And this is not about Chinese billionaires or billionaires from other countries who all of a sudden have 75 children, or 59 children in one case, or 10 children becoming American citizens,” Trump said. “This was about slaves.”
The Trump administration has argued over the past year that the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was originally written to extend citizenship to the children of slaves as they make their case for the legality of Trump’s executive order.
“The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause was adopted to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children—not to children of temporarily present aliens or illegal aliens,” the DOJ wrote in its brief to the Supreme Court.
Trump told reporters that this would be his second time heading to the Supreme Court, after attending its opening during his first administration.
Trump has had a contentious relationship with the court throughout the first year of his second term. Most recently, Trump railed against the court, including several justices whom he appointed, for ruling against his International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett were the three GOP-appointed justices to buck Trump on the IEEPA tariff ruling.
“I love a few of them. I don’t like some others,” Trump said of the justices on Tuesday when asked if he would be watching any of them in particular. “The ones that were appointed by Barack Hussein Obama and Biden — I don’t care how good your case is; you could have the greatest case ever, they’re going to rule against you. They always do.
TRUMP ALLIES URGE SUPREME COURT TO UPHOLD HIS BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ORDER
“It’s not supposed to be that way,” Trump said. “Now, the Republicans tend to be very different. They want to show how honorable they are, so a man can appoint them and they can rule against him.”
The Supreme Court convenes at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, with afternoon arguments set to begin at 1 p.m.
