A legal expert warned on Sunday that the Supreme Court seems willing to test the limits of America's constitutional multiracial democracy by approving a "wildly illegal" executive order from President Donald Trump.
Leah Litman, a law professor at the University of Michigan and co-host of the "Strict Scrutiny" podcast, said during a new interview on the podcast "Pod Save America" that the Supreme Court's recent spate of immigration decisions gave her pause. Last week, the court sided with the Trump administration by ending Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and thousands of Syrian immigrants. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to further rewrite America's citizenship standards in an upcoming case about birthright citizenship, an opinion that several court watchers expect will come down this upcoming week ahead of the court's summer recess.
"The recent immigration decisions are really concerning," Litman said. "The fact that the court adopted such broad reasoning in cases where they didn't have to do so at all, I think, is causing some people to rethink their confidence in what the court might do on birthright [citizenship]."
One of the first executive orders Trump signed during his second term sought to halt recognition of citizenship for children born to people in the country illegally or temporary residents. It would overturn more than a century of jurisprudence, which has granted citizenship to these groups.
Litman said the Supreme Court's delay in releasing its opinion signals that it might contain a few fireworks.
"I think the delay could also signal that the decision isn't going to be unanimous, and if it's not unanimous, that's going to meaningfully alter the Overton window as far as what people's understanding of our constitutional multiracial democracy is," she said.
"If you have dissents by Justices Thomas and Alito, is birthright citizenship going to become a new litmus test for Republican appointees, where the expectation is you will only be selected for a judicial seat if you would overrule birthright citizenship, just like you could only be selected for a judicial seat if you would overrule Roe v. Wade?" Litman queried. "It would also invite future challenges to birthright citizenship down the road. So, I think those are some of the things that are on people's minds."