Chris Murphy calls birthright citizenship ruling ‘dangerous'
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday condemned the Supreme Court's decision to rule in President Donald Trump's favor over nationwide injunctions in its birthright citizenship case.
Murphy on Sunday told MSNBC's Kirsten Welker that the ruling allows Trump to 'undermine' democracy.
'Taking away the power of courts to restrain the president when he's clearly acting in an unlawful manner, as he is when he says that children born in the United States are no longer citizens, you are assisting him in trying to undermine the rule of law and undermine our democracy,' Murphy said on 'Meet the Press.'
Though the Supreme Court's decision did not give Trump a complete win, it did narrow nationwide injunctions that blocked his January executive order trying to end birthright citizenship for certain individuals. By a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court said that federal judges can't, with perhaps limited exceptions, issue injunctions that go beyond their regional authority.
'It's really dangerous because it will incentivize the president to act in a lawless manner,' Murphy added. 'Because now only the Supreme Court, who can only take a handful of cases a year, can ever stop him from violating the laws and the Constitution.'
Trump has long supported ending birthright citizenship. On his first day in office this year, Trump signed an order to deny American citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. to foreigners on short-term visas or without legal status.
But the 14th Amendment declares anyone 'born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof' as a citizen of the United States.
The 6-3 decision down ideological lines did not weigh in on the constitutionality of Trump's order or interpret the meaning of that clause, but the White House declared Friday's ruling to be a major victory for the administration.
'I'm grateful to the Supreme Court for stepping in and solving this very, very big and complex problem, and they've made it very simple,' Trump said of the ruling.
Still, Murphy said the ruling, which will take effect later in July, only creates a 'patchwork' of citizenship laws that could differ from state to state.
'Both the Constitution and the law is clear. If you're born in the United States of America, you're a U.S. citizen,' Murphy said. 'But now because there's no longer going to be a federal policy, it's going to be different in every state. A child born in the United States, born in Connecticut will be a citizen. But that same child if they were born in Oklahoma might not be. That's chaos.'
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