Trump loses Supreme Court battle to end birthright citizenship

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. And today on our show, we look at the origins and evolution of made in China, because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:41Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Coming to you live from London, I'm Rajini Vaidynarthen. It was a law President Trump signed on the first day of his second term, a flagship part of his immigration agenda, one which defines what it is to be American. But today, following legal challenges which went all the way to the US Supreme Court, the President's plans to end birthright citizenship was struck down. Since 1868, babies born in America have been granted automatic citizenship as enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, even if their parents are in the US temporarily or unlawfully.

1:21Today, the Supreme Court said that should continue. President Trump said the decision was too bad. We'll hear from someone who agrees with him later in the programme. But first, Congressman Adriano Espia, the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress, welcomed that news. Trump tried to erase one of our nation's clearest constitutional guarantees and he failed. We won and he failed. We're right and he's wrong. No president has the power. No president has the power to decide who an American is. And what about those who would have been impacted by that ruling if it had changed? Well, I've been speaking to one woman from Guatemala.

2:09She fell violence there and travelled to America in March 2024 seeking asylum. Last summer, she gave birth to a baby girl. Now, she didn't want us to use her voice on air. so you can hear her answers translated by a member of Democracy Defenders. That's a US-based organisation which represents her. I began by getting her reaction to today's ruling. I feel sincerely a great deal of joy. It was a process that took a lot of effort, patience and above all hope. But I give thanks to God for this blessing for my family and all other migrants in the United States. How have you felt since President Trump announced that he wanted to end birthright citizenship?

2:56Because of course, that would have impacted the status of your young daughter. I felt great sadness and concern because it would be very painful. I left my country to escape from the daily violence and corruption that we lived every day. I was chased by a man who killed my co-worker. And so I knew that if we returned, not only my life would be at risk, but my daughter's life would also be at risk from persecution. There are some people, particularly those, of course, who support President Trump, who believe that birthright citizenship encourages so-called birth tourism, that people will just go to America because they can get American citizenship for their children.

3:49And that's certainly the argument as to why the president said he wanted to end it. What would you say to people who make that argument? I would ask that they not think that way, but rather give us a chance to show that we don't want to be a burden on the government. We are hardworking people working to put bread on the table for our families. I would ask that they look at us with eyes of compassion. You've left Guatemala. You said you left a very difficult situation back there and you've applied for asylum in the United States. I wonder if you could just share a little bit more about why you felt you had to leave and the dangers that you left behind.

4:37I fled Guatemala with fear for my life because I was being pursued by a serial killer who would become obsessed with women, stalk and kill them. And he became obsessed and was stalking me and my co-worker. One morning, my coworker and myself were separated at work, and he found her and killed her. She was heavily pregnant at the time. And the police has done nothing to apprehend him. He is still on the loose. There has been no justice. There is no support or protection for women who go through this in my country. the government does not care enough to protect us and so I fled to this country and I am still very heartbroken about the death of my co-worker.

5:44And what hopes do you have for your daughter I mean particularly given the decision that we had just a few hours ago from the Supreme Court in the US. I have hope that my daughter's life will be safer in this country. She will also have more opportunities than I had. She will have a better, more stable life here and she will be free to walk on the street without fear. The words of a Guatemalan woman whose baby girl was born in the US last year, speaking to me through an interpreter. Well, as we mentioned earlier, there's been a strong reaction from President Trump to the court not going his way.

6:26On True Social, he pledged to end birthright citizenship still by using legislation. He wrote, Congress should today start working on ending expensive and unfair to our country birthright citizenship. But can he do that? Well, Jessica Levinson's a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in California. I think President Trump's post is a misunderstanding, frankly, of what the majority concluded today. A thin majority of the court looked not just at a federal law, but also at the Constitution, and specifically the 14th Amendment that was put into our Constitution after the Civil War, and concluded that the Constitution requires if you're born on U.S.

7:09soil, you are a U.S. citizen. And that's not something that can be undone by a congressional statute. There are only really two routes to change that understanding. One is another Supreme Court case that would overturn the decision the court just made today, or a constitutional amendment. But you cannot by statute change what the Constitution means. So broadly speaking, this was a loss for the president. He's still trying to end birthright citizenship. It's not been a great week for him at the Supreme Court, has it? He's not always got what he's wanted there. I think this has been a mixed week for the president when it comes to the end of the Supreme Court term.

7:53Certainly, he had a big win in one case dealing with his power and the power of any president to fire the heads of executive agencies. And this is a case that It will have, I think, very big implications, again, for President Trump and any other president who seeks to really put their mark on the heads of these executive agencies. But then the president has, of course, suffered some losses, the birthright citizenship case. There was another case dealing with the Federal Reserve. And then there was another huge decision that came out of the Supreme Court. But that was months ago, the tariff decision the president lost as well.

8:33Were you surprised that given that the Supreme Court does have a conservative majority, it has made some rulings against the president? Three of the nine members have been appointed by President Trump. I was not surprised that they have dealt him some defeats because fundamentally what judges do is and should be different from what politicians do. And I think what we're seeing is that there is a difference between conservative legal thought and conservative politics. And this president has embraced a very broad view of executive power. The Supreme Court has often viewed that consistently and allowed him to do that, but not always.

9:17The Supreme Court has also put brakes on President Trump as well. I mean, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has described the ruling today on birthright citizenship as one of the most destructive and outrageous decisions in the long history of the Supreme Court. Is this the first time that we've heard a White House criticise a decision or is this something we've seen in history before? Certainly, we have seen tension between the White House and the Supreme Court for decades. And we can go all the way back to the early 1900s and an enormous amount of tension between what the president was trying to do, particularly President Roosevelt during the New Deal and what the Supreme Court was preventing him from doing.

9:59I will say I think the language that we see today is different from language we've previously seen from other presidential administrations. But I mean, this is why we have a system of checks and balances. We expect that there could be tension between the branches. Jessica Levinson, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in California. Now, just under 2000 people have now been confirmed dead after last week's twin earthquakes in Venezuela, according to the government. but many more remain missing, trapped under the rubble. The country's president, Delcey Rodriguez, has described it as the most brutal natural catastrophe in her nation's history.

10:38Anger against the government's growing as Venezuelans say rescue operations have been slow and inadequate. The BBC's Yogyatala Mai reports from La Guayera, a coastal town which has been the hardest hit.

10:52you can hear lots of sounds around me there are two or three earth movers that are working simultaneously one that is trying to dig through the rubble another one that is trying to lift a concrete slab i'm standing very close to the debris of a collapsed building we've just spoken to Miguel Oscar, whose 34-year-old son, Miguel Angel, lived inside the building. I am here because my son is under the rubble. Like my son, there are hundreds of others trapped here. We need more support from authorities, because what's being done just isn't enough. It's possible that the earthquake hasn't killed my son, but negligence will of not getting help in time.

11:44We've come to one of the hospitals in Laguaira and what we've been seeing at hospitals here as well as in Caracas are families who are searching for their loved ones who are missing. So they're going to see the list of those admitted. They're going to the morgue to see the list of those who've died. And we've met a mother here, a young mother, Belisabeth Herrera. She's looking for information about her two daughters, Grey Belis and Grey Belis Phillips, 12 and 13 years old. She believes they were at home when the earthquake occurred, but she can't be sure. And what she's told us is there was absolutely no rescue operation at her building.

12:26They are all I have. I just want to find them at any cost. There were no machines or rescue sent. It's like you've been left on your own to search for your loved ones.

12:41We can just see this giant mess of debris in front of us. Two tall apartment buildings stood here. Residents who live here say they were 16 stories high and they basically just collapsed into a pile of rubble. When we speak to people here, they're telling us they're angry at their government because they feel like they've been left to their own devices to deal with the aftermath of this massive disaster. There are rescue teams arriving from different parts of the world, but it's just not enough. The next big challenge for this country is going to be how to dispose of all the dead and how to stop the outbreak of disease.

13:19We have got some good news from Venezuela. We are hearing that a three-year-old has been rescued six days after those earthquakes. Some glimmers of hope as those rescue efforts do still continue.

13:37you. Coming up on NewsHour, the granddaughter of legendary Indian playback singer Ashwa Bosley explains why she took to the stage in London in her memory. This song was basically supposed to be performed in September of last year. And unfortunately, you know, her health wasn't too well that time. So we had to rush back. So this is my way of completing her unfinished business. and getting on stage with this amazing band, that's the only way that we could do something that could truly honour her and her legacy. Let's bring you up to date with our headlines this hour and President Trump says he'll try and use Congress to get around the Supreme Court, striking down his order banning birthright citizenship, key plank of his anti-immigration drive.

14:23And Cuba says months of talks with the US have yielded no progress as the communist-run island struggles under that American blockade.

14:38This is Rajini Vaidyanathan with NewsHour, coming to you live from the BBC in London.

14:51The sound of cheers there recorded on my phone back in September 2022 as Serena Williams, one of the tennis greats, lost at the US Open in New York, playing what we thought then was the last ever match of her career. I remember the emotion and the tears as the 23-time Grand Slam champion said goodbye at the Arthur Ashe Stadium, receiving a standing ovation as she twirled off the court. Well, Serena, who of course has an equally accomplished sister in Venus, is back now, four years on, returning to the singles drawer at Wimbledon after she received a wild card. Well, let's have a listen to what she told the BBC ahead of today's match.

15:34I felt a lot of things where I haven't felt the butterflies yet. I don't feel the pressure to do anything except for have fun and enjoy myself and enjoy the moment. I'm never a free person in general. You see me play. I don't play. I play like a maniac. So we'll see. I mean, as of now, I'm calm, but I might change in a matter of minutes. Who knows? Anything is possible, I guess. But also, sometimes it's good to just enjoy yourself. So that's what I'm planning to do. Well, she certainly is enjoying herself because right now it's one set all as Serena is still playing that match. Well, let's cross live to Florida now and speak to somebody who knows Serena's game very well.

16:21Rick Macy coached a young Serena from the age of 9 to 14. Welcome to NewsHour again, Rick. First of all, I'm sure you're watching as well. I can't take this. It's too close so far. Yeah, no, I'm watching it. It's kind of what I thought, you know. This is all about her movement. You know, when you can move, especially a vintage Serena, you're going to be able to play more offense and defense. And that's why it's a battle right now. But I think for not playing for four years, she's doing a pretty good job. She is, isn't she? She lost the first set and now she's come back in the second and we're into the third.

16:58Why do you think she decided to pick her racket back again? Because when I saw her in 2022, it seemed like that really was her finale. Well, not really. You know, she's so competitive. She really didn't want to retire. But, you know, family and so on and so forth. But now her kids are a little older and she wanted to have the kids, you know, show what mommy does for a living, you know. And I think it's great. And to do it on center court at Wimbledon, you couldn't script it any better. And the whole world's curious. And I think she's doing great. But that's why she came back and she's going to play the entire year.

17:38You can mail it in. I can mail it in. Well, we'll see when we, Rick. And Rick, as someone who coached her at a young age, watching her now, what do you see from back then that she's held on to in terms of her technique and the way she plays? Well, first off, I told Richard early on she's going to have the best serve of all time. Bang! And she has the best serve of all time. She had a great throwing motion. Even watching now, she's popping serves 122 miles an hour and she's 44 years old. So you never lose that. That has nothing to do with movement. It's all technique and biomechanics. So she's always had a great service motion, great ball striker, very clean.

18:21But this is what I see now. She's not able to dictate as much as before, and she's playing a lot more defense, but it's the competitiveness. You know, when I went out to Compton in 1991, there was a rage in both her and Venus, and it's something I've never seen to this day. and Serena was big, strong, fast, quick, mobile and agile. But she was like a little pit bull. Once she got a hold of you, she never let go and she's the ultimate competitor and I'm glad she's doing it again on centre court Wimbledon. Rick, I'm looking at a poll on the BBC Sport website which says how far will Serena Williams go in women's singles and the majority of the votes say that she'll only get to the first round.

19:08What's your prediction? um well i think she has a good shot to win this match um but you never know the next round she plays a much different ball striker uh but i i think it's it's irrelevant you know i think anybody that doesn't play for four years that's one thing but to do it and you're 44 years old you know it's it's all about the movement so she can win this match but then if she does the next one's going going to be rough sledding. Okay. And just tell me about your personal memories of her as a young girl. Listen, she was a prankster. She was always happy-go-lucky. Both her and Venus were two peas in a pod.

19:52Even to this same day, they're still skipping and holding hands. I tell her about Serena as a kid. She was the nicest, meanest kid I've ever taught. I mean, she was just different. but I love that because she was just a great competitor but every night after practice both her and Venus would give me a hug and a fist pump but sometimes Serena's fist pump was a little more authoritative because she always had that look and she kind of had that streak but listen that's what makes someone becomes great and she's the greatest player ever to hold the racket. And I remember seeing her at the Arthur Ashe Stadium as I say when she said her farewell and the response from the crowd was unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

20:38How much of a role model do you think she is? Not just, of course, in tennis, but just overall. No, she transformed the sport, but more importantly, just the generational talent through all walks of life. You know, look where she came from. She wasn't in the front row or the back row. She wasn't even in the building. She was from Compton. Forget the African-American community. She is the American dream and her competitiveness and drive. I mean, you can if anybody can pick up on that, any young child, that alone is going to take you through the game of life. But no, she's she's the ultimate role model and everybody should take a page out of her playbook.

21:21OK, Rick, very quickly in 15 seconds, can you give us a bit of commentary as she's playing right now? yeah she's down one uh one love and it's uh 40 30 it's her serve like i said she has the best serve of all time smooth it's like a knife through butter i always told her with that left hand it's like placing an egg on the shelf if you watch her toss it's in the same place every time let's uh let's take a look and see what happens if she hits the corner especially on grass it should be a good sir. Okay, well, Rick, we will see what happens. Thank you very much for that commentary. That match continues on.

22:01Let's move on now. Police in the south of France are searching for a suspect who planted a parcel bomb in Monaco, severely injuring a wealthy Ukrainian businessman. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris. At around nine o 'clock yesterday evening, a man was seen depositing a parcel at the entrance to an apartment building in Monaco. A short time later, three people, A man, a woman and a teenage boy were about to enter the building when there was an explosion. This eyewitness said he and his mother heard a loud noise. They didn't realise at first it was right next door. There was screaming and shouting, and when he went down to the street, he saw the victims on the ground.

22:40The presumed target is Vadim Yermolayev, a Ukrainian millionaire who made his fortune in the eastern city of Dnipro. He also had a big wines and spirits business in Crimea, which he maintained after the Russian occupation in 2014. In recent years, he was the object of sanctions from the government in Kiev. He'd taken Cypriot nationality and lived in Monaco and elsewhere on the French Riviera. There's no clue as to the motive of the attack, nor as to the identity of the attacker, who escaped on foot across the border into France. That's the BBC's Hugh Schofield watching that story from Paris. I should just say that we do have more on that story as well on the BBC News website.

23:20and if you want to stay across what's happening at Wimbledon, of course, there's plenty of updates. The BBC Sports team are running a live page there. I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan and this is NewsHour.

23:39When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. And today on our show, we look at the origins and evolution of made in China because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:12Welcome back to NewsHour. Cape Verde have become one of the most talked about teams in the World Cup. Now, in an exclusive interview with the BBC, the country's president, Jose Maria Neves, has predicted that his country will defeat the current world champions, Argentina, in the knockout phase. Well, he said the team, the Blue Sharks, have built a reputation for shocking their opponents whenever they felt underestimated. President Neves also commented on media reports, alleging an ongoing police investigation into an allegation of sexual assault by one of the team members, the captain himself, Ryan Mendes.

24:48Well, BBC's Paul Nje and Michael Mvondo met him in the capital prior. Mr President, the Blue Sharks will play the current world champions, Argentina, in the knockout round. How do you think that game will go? I hope that Cape Verde will keep performing well. We went to this World Cup to write our own destiny, which is facing champions. So we are going to face Argentina and Messi with the same determination, same will, and with the desire to win and reach the next phase. Realistically, Mr President, do you think the Cape Verdeans stand a chance against Argentina, or do you think they might win this World Cup?

25:28The Cape Verdean team has 100 % faith, 100 % hope, and this would completely sweat out of its jersey. So we have 100 % chance to win against Argentina. 10 % of the possibilities. So I guess I should ask then, Mr President, what's your prediction for that game? Give me a score. I think Cape Verde can beat Argentina 1-0. Prior to the World Cup, many people underestimated Cape Verde and they even talked to them as the underdogs. But what explains their sudden rise to football glory in such a short time? I think when expectations are low regarding a team and if that team has the urge to win, it is possible.