Topic of the Week: Supreme Court Strikes Down Executive Order Ending Birthright Citizenship

The U.S. Supreme Court last week upheld the right of birthright citizenship as defined by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court rejected an executive order by President Trump that sought to end the right of citizenship for children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. Our analysts rated media coverage about the court ruling in our Topic of the Week.

A news article from the Associated Press (AP) and an opinion piece from The Hill received similar scores from our analysts. The AP article gives the facts of the court case and quotes extensively from the justices’ written opinions. It includes a link to the full court judgment and quotes from President Trump when he reacted to the ruling. Analysts found the article to be “simple fact reporting” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

The Hill article asks the question, “Does the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship make sense?” Contributor Nolan Rappaport looks at the history of birthright citizenship in the U.S. and how it has evolved in other countries. He includes reaction to the court ruling from a sociology professor and wonders if the U.S. “should revisit the justification for birthright citizenship.” He concludes: “The court just ruled that it is the law of the land. It did not rule on whether it still makes sense?” Although the article is labeled as “opinion,” our analysts found the content to be a “mix of fact reporting and analysis” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

Three pieces of content analyzed by our team fell into the category of “opinion.” An article from Washington Examiner states in its headline that the court ruling “cheapens citizenship” and claims it is a “misreading of the 14th Amendment’s purpose.” Opinion writer Curtis Hill says, “The citizenship clause was never meant to function as a weekend pass or an overnight guarantee.” Instead, it was in reaction to the “moral and legal catastrophe of Dred Scott v. Sandford,” which ruled that black people could never be citizens. The recent court ruling, he says, extends the amendment’s purpose far beyond what was intended. Hill agrees with Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion on the case, and Hill writes that citizenship should not be “granted by the accident of geography alone.” Analysts rated the article with a “strong right” bias.

An article from HuffPost focuses on reaction to the court ruling from those on the political right. The headline reads: “The Right’s Birthright Citizenship Freak-Out Shows What’s At The Heart Of MAGA … Trump’s MAGA movement has always been about one thing: who to exclude from the national community.” It quotes several from the political right, who call the decision “total madness,” “evil” and a “tremendous betrayal,” but it says these people are overreacting, since the court ruling upholds the status quo and changes nothing. The article quotes Trump official Steven Miller and says, “Citizens have a color and it isn’t the color of those from ‘third-world nations,’ as Miller puts it.” The article says Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship “is an effort to refute Lincoln and the Declaration in pursuit of a great whitening of the country.” Analysts gave the article a bias rating of “hyper-partisan left.”

A video from the Pondering Politics YouTube channel also was found to have a “hyper-partisan left” bias. Host Jessiah Eberlin calls the court ruling “excellent news for American democracy.” He shows a video clip from Fox News reporting about the court decision, a video of Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson finding out about the ruling, and he reads extensively from a post by Democracy Docket. Eberlin says Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship was “an attack on American democracy and it was repudiated,” calling the decision a “major defeat for Donald Trump.” Despite the ruling, he says, the Supreme Court is “still a partisan, ideologically biased institution. It is a threat to democracy in its own way as much as Trump.” Eberlin scoffs at expected Republican reaction to the ruling, saying that “MAGA tears are quite delicious. We nourish ourselves on MAGA despair unapologetically.”

On the flip side, a video from the JosiahRises YouTube channel calls the court decision a “death toll for America in every way possible because our country cannot continue to allow insanity like this [birthright citizenship] to happen.” Host Josiah Swanson reads a quote from Charlie Kirk against birthright citizenship and plays a video clip of a mother whose daughter was killed by an illegal immigrant. Swanson reads social media posts from President Trump, who congratulates China for the Supreme Court win and charges Congress to end birthright citizenship through legislation. Swanson says “it is absolutely insane that a country like China can have more integrity than America does when it comes to protecting our citizens.” He asserts that “President Trump seems to be one of the only people that is actually willing to fight for our country.” Swanson mocks Democrats and calls them “a bunch of sheeps that are allowing the wolves to come in just because they feel bad for the wolves.” The video received a bias rating of “hyper-partisan right” and was found to be “selective or incomplete/unfair persuasion.”

If you would like to follow along with our weekly Topic of the Week exercise, you can do so by visiting our website. New Topics of the Week are posted each Monday. Read the articles and watch the videos yourself, then come back on Wednesday to compare your scores with our analysts. Learn more here.

Beth Heldebrandt is Director of Communications at Ad Fontes Media. She has more than 35 years of experience in the fields of journalism and public relations, and was an adjunct instructor of journalism for 17 years at Eastern Illinois University. Beth has a B.A. in journalism from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and an M.A. in English from Eastern Illinois University. She’s a mom and grandma, and enjoys traveling, puzzles and reading.