‘Scorcher of a brief’: Catholic bishops rebuke Trump order

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has filed what legal analysts are calling a blistering Supreme Court brief urging the justices to strike down President Donald Trump’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship for many immigrants’ children.

The conference – which frequently backs conservative positions at the high court – delivered what Slate described as a “searing, full-throated rebuke” of the president’s order.

“This is a scorcher of a brief that holds nothing back,” Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick said on the outlet’s “Amicus” podcast. She quoted the filing as stating that the bishops’ opposition “is motivated by their firmly held belief that each person is endowed by God with an inherent dignity that confers certain universal, inviolable, and inalienable rights.”

The brief continues: “The intended and unintended effects of the executive order are immoral and contrary to the Catholic Church’s fundamental beliefs and teachings regarding the life and dignity of human persons, the treatment of vulnerable people— particularly migrants and children—and family unity.”

Co-host Mark Joseph Stern added that the document is “first and foremost, making a faith-based claim. He then read directly from the brief’s section headings.

“To dismantle the principle of birthright citizenship would undermine both the legal and moral foundations of American society,” the bishops wrote, according to Stern.

Another heading declares that “ending birthright citizenship weakens and threatens the family,” and the filing argues that Trump’s executive order is “antithetical to the import of the Church’s teachings because it deprives people … of the legal rights necessary to participate in the society of their birth.”