MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This is the last day of the U.S. Supreme Court's current term, and several major rulings are expected. Two cases involve bans on transgender athletes.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The case attracting the most attention is about birthright citizenship and whether it should still be automatically granted to any child born in the United States.
MARTIN: Here to tell us more about this is NPR immigration policy correspondent Ximena Bustillo. Ximena, good morning.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So, you know, this had been considered a settled issue. So how did it get before the court, and how might it go?
BUSTILLO: President Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office barring citizenship for children born in the U.S. if parents entered the country illegally or are here on a temporary status, like a visa. It brings into question the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that says, quote, "all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States." A decision siding with Trump would upend over a century of legal precedent and raise several logistical challenges for millions of mixed-status families. But if Trump loses in court, it would be a blow to one of his several immigration-related campaign promises.
MARTIN: Ximena, you know, we're still sorting through the effects of immigration rulings that came last week, mainly one on temporary protected status, or TPS. You've been following this very closely. How has that played out?
BUSTILLO: Right. And that gave the administration more power to end TPS, particularly for Haitians and Syrians. And that's a program that allows people to stay in the U.S. because their countries have been considered unsafe to return to. The administration is arguing they need to either find a way to adjust their status or leave. And now hundreds of thousands of people are waiting to see when they may lose permission to legally live and work in the U.S.
MARTIN: You mentioned that the case was specifically about Haitians and Syrians, but other groups could be affected next, I take it. So who are they?
BUSTILLO: Right. Officially, there are only four countries that still have TPS that has not reached an expiration date yet. That's Lebanon, El Salvador, Sudan and Ukraine. And some Venezuelans still also have an active TPS. This all totals to more than a quarter of a million people, and all of these designations will expire by the end of this year. El Salvador, particularly, has had TPS since 2001. And I spoke with Todd Schulte of FWD.us, an immigrant advocacy group. And he says it's possible that by the end of the year, there's no one with TPS.
TODD SCHULTE: These are people who have been building their lives here for over a quarter century, and there is no precedent in modern immigration history for revoking status (inaudible) population like that.
BUSTILLO: I asked the Department of Homeland Security whose status they could terminate next, but they didn't respond. And this administration has been a sharp critic of TPS, arguing that the program is meant to be temporary.
MARTIN: Overall, then, how could the court end up shaping Trump's immigration policy, if you can put all this together from TPS to this birthright citizenship issue?
BUSTILLO: For a lot of families, it's just all related. The administration wants to limit how people can legally be in the country. And TPS is one way, and citizenship by birth is another. There are TPS recipients who have U.S. citizen children at the center of the birthright ruling. And even if birthright is supported by the court, immigrant advocates say that families may need to continue to be making this decision of whether to stay together. And, you know, there was a lot of focus on people here without legal status, and the administration's policies have been focusing more towards narrowing legal migration. And sending these cases to be litigated at the highest court underscores that message.
MARTIN: That is NPR immigration policy correspondent Ximena Bustillo. Ximena, thank you.
BUSTILLO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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