Are US-Born Pinoys deemed Americans?

The answer used to be an automatic "Yes" based on the well-settled principle of "jus soli". The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution confers citizenship to all persons born in or naturalized in the USA and guarantees equal protection and due process.

The 50 states are prohibited from abridging the rights and privileges of such citizens. But President Donald Trump wants to reverse this. On January 20, 2025, the president issued an executive order that would end that system of granting automatic citizenship to all babies born on American soil. He was referring to children of illegal immigrants who crossed the borders, entered the US without documents and then delivered babies in America.

Jus soli, which is the Latin term for right of the soil, was invented by French jurist Charles Demolombe. It is a principle in international law decreeing that any child born within a country's territory acquires that country's citizenship regardless of the parents' citizenship. This becomes known as birthright citizenship.

The Philippines does not use jus soli but jus sanguinis, which is an opposite principle. It means that children always follow the citizenship of their parents no matter where they are born. But the US enshrined jus soli by amending its Constitution in 1868. President Trump wants to abolish this not by constitutional amendment but by mere executive order.

A number of petitions were filed against the constitutionality of Trump's order. Senior US District Judge, based in Seattle John Coughenour called Trump's executive order "blatantly unconstitutional.” Many other federal judges followed. Thus, President Trump ordered the solicitor general to file a petition before the US Supreme Court seeking to reverse the federal judge's ruling.

In the landmark case of Trump v. Barbara, US Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices that the 14th Amendment was adopted to give newly-freed slaves, who were black people and their children the blessing of citizenship. He said that such an amendment is not intended to favor illegal aliens and those who enter the country illegally.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative appointed by a Republican president, and who always supports Trump's position on legal cases before, expressed skepticism on Solgen Sauer's arguments. He reminded Sauer about the ruling written by Justice John Marshall Harlan in the case of Wong Kim Ark. Justice Elena Kagan also questioned Sauer's line of arguments.

Even Chief Justice John Roberts expressed some discomfort about the solicitor general's submissions. Justice Samuel Alito also expressed concurrence with the apprehensions of the chief justice. The black female justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is a well-known liberal, appointed by President Joe Biden, joined Justice Brett Kavanaugh's suggestion that it seemed that the majority of not all the nine justices disagreed with Sauer.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor weighed in also in support of the position that does not agree with Trump and Sauer. We do not want to jump the gun and foretell the decision, which may still be promulgated sometime in May or June. But the way the court arguments went seems to indicate that this time, the Supreme Court of the U.S. will not yield to the importuning of the president.

It is my bold prediction that the U.S. Supreme Court will most probably uphold the validity of the 14th Amendment, and the principle of jus soli, and deny the president the audacity to reverse the Constitution by merely issuing an executive order.