Trump’s double challenge to the Supreme Court: attacks on Lisa Cook at the Fed and ius soli

A two-pronged challenge by Donald Trump to the Supreme Court. The US President has initiated – as reported by ABC News – proceedings to dismiss Lisa Cook from the board of the Federal Reserve, just a few weeks after the ruling that blocked her dismissal. But Trump, through two executive orders, has also relaunched the battle against ius soli, the right to citizenship by birth in the United States, on which he had already been rebuffed by the constitutional judges at the end of June.

Last week, Trump reportedly informed Cook, in a letter, that the president is ‘considering’ his dismissal. The move comes following the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court, which, in order to safeguard the central bank’s independence, has placed limits on the president’s powers to intervene in the Fed (following months of attacks on former Chair Jerome Powell). The Court also ruled that Cook may remain in her post whilst defending herself against allegations of mortgage fraud brought by the Republican administration. Cook – the first African-American woman on the Fed’s board – has consistently denied the allegations, describing them as “a pretext” to remove her due to differences over monetary policy. Trump, however – according to sources spoken to by ABC News – has initiated formal proceedings to secure her dismissal regardless.

The US President, pressing ahead with one of his campaigns against immigration, has once again challenged the Supreme Court over restricting the right to citizenship for many children born on US soil to non-American parents. “They’ve turned birthright citizenship into a joke,” Trump said as he signed the order.

The first order aims to expand the categories of people who cannot become US citizens by right of birth: it deems newborns ineligible for citizenship if their parents ‘are foreign enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organisations, or fall within broad categories of people who engage in lobbying activities and act on behalf of foreign governments’. The second measure directs the Departments of State and Homeland Security to take steps to restrict entry to foreign nationals whose specific aim is to have their children born in the United States. “The practice of birth tourism is now banned,” declared Stephen Miller from the Oval Office , the right-wing figure in power responsible for borders, immigration and citizenship.

It is unclear how these restrictions will be implemented. In 2024, according to the latest government data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute, 9,600 children were born in the US to mothers who had arrived from abroad, but many experts believe the figure could exceed 22,000 children a year. This figure is, however, negligible compared to the 3.6 million births recorded in the United States last year.