“I think that there is a grave concern that if the Supreme Court allows the president to rewrite the citizenship clause by executive order, we don’t know what we can count on and what rights we have,” Taryn Wilgus Null, senior counsel at the Democracy Defenders Fund,told Capital B during the press call, underscoring fears that eroding this protection could dramatically destabilize really any right that has long been viewed as safe.

These are the stakes of the decision before the Supreme Court, experts said.

“There’s kind of two levels to it,” Stumpf said. “What are these kids going to be actually subject to? And then, how is society going to perceive their membership in our country?”

So the consequences of this executive order going into effect would be enormous.

So, first, it would prevent about a quarter-million children each year from gaining citizenship going forward, which they would otherwise have under the previous understanding of the citizenship clause. It also would mean that every family who gives birth to a child going forward, and that's 3.5 million families a year, would have to prove their ancestry, their lineage before their child would be recognized as a citizen.

Attribution

They say that relative to our desires
our goodness is overwhelming. That living is tragicomedy.
That we seek what is good for a limited idea of Good.
And we should go bigger.
That we were unsavable. But already saved.
That we partied so well.
That we never had—through the wall—to confess.
That we were forgiven from birth.
And it was just a matter of remembering.
— from Apocrypha by Bianca Stone