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| By Brakkton Booker, Gloria Gonzalez and Jesse Naranjo | What up, Recast fam! Here’s today’s agenda:
- Liberal groups hope the conservative Supreme Court will reverse Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order
- Puerto Rico has a new representative in Congress
- Why Ruben Gallego’s vote on the Laken Riley bill is a warning for Democrats
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President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP | True to his word, President Donald Trump, with the stroke of his pen, upended more than a century of legal precedent with this declaration: “The privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States.” Attorneys general from 22 states and civil liberties groups have already sued, arguing that the president doesn’t have the authority to reverse birthright citizenship. It’s a fight that’s winnable, they argue ... but they’ll need the conservative-leaning Supreme Court — one that’s been deferential to Trump — to break from him. “It’s always an uncertainty when you're dealing with the court,” Karla McKanders, director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Thurgood Marshall Institute, told The Recast. At first glance, it’s hard to fathom why liberal-leaning groups would put their faith in the high court siding with them. After all, this court helped pave the way for Trump’s return by blocking states seeking to keep him off their ballots (due to his felony conviction) ahead of the 2024 election. Then, the justices issued a precedent-setting decision, stating that Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for his actions as president in his first term. But McKanders pointed to a more recent writing that could bolster Democrats’ case to keep birthright citizenship: Chief Justice John Roberts, in his year-end report, warned that judicial independence is being undermined. “Elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected,” he noted.
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“As lawyers, maybe we are a little bit overly optimistic,” McKanders said. “It's a wait and see what Justice Roberts means when he says that he's recognizing these threats.”
Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter limits on immigration, said the plaintiffs’ argument — that birthright citizenship is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment — is an “obsolete” interpretation of the law. “It's obsolete because there are no more slaves, thank goodness, and it creates this magnet for illegal migration and birth tourism,” she said, suggesting that Trump repeatedly made this a top issue during the campaign so he could tee up a court fight during his first weeks in office.
“I think that's why Trump and his campaign telegraphed that this was going to be a Day One issue,” Vaughan added. “It's an effort to gain clarity on a controversial issue that is enormous and that has a very significant effect on the United States.”
Trump’s birthright executive order, dubbed “Protecting the meaning and value of American Citizenship,” if left unchecked, goes into effect Feb. 19. The measure establishes that children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants and those temporarily in the country on a visa without permanent status will no longer be automatically granted U.S. citizenship. Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney who headed the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation under Barack Obama, believes the liberal attorneys general and civil rights groups do have a case. He thinks they could even make a strong immunity-based argument because, by extension, the order could mean immigrants can’t be held responsible for crimes under U.S. law. "I don't think the courts will let them say that that means different things in two different contexts," he told The Recast. "How can you be, in my view, not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States for the purposes of personalized citizenship, but you are subject to the jurisdiction for criminal laws?” We’ll no doubt keep tabs on this moving forward. All the best,
The Recast Team
| | | | Power shifts, razor-thin margins, and a high-stakes agenda. We’ve transformed our coverage—more reporters, more timely insights, and unmatched policy scoops. From leadership offices to committee rooms, caucus meetings, and beyond, our expert reporting keeps you ahead of the decisions that matter. Subscribe to our Inside Congress newsletter today. | | | | | PUERTO RICO’S NEW REPRESENTATIVE
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Newly elected Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández Rivera speaks at a news conference with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus outside the Capitol on Nov. 15, 2024. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO | Puerto Rico has a new representative in Congress: Pablo José Hernández Rivera of the Popular Democratic Party, which advocates for continuing as a commonwealth of the U.S. with self-governance. He’s replacing the previous, pro-statehood Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón, who won her bid to become the territory’s governor in November. Our Gloria Gonzalez caught up with him in his new Hill office about Puerto Rico’s infamously fragile power grid, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s recent proposal to “liberate” the territory from the United States and his priorities as a new member of Congress. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What do you think of the Venezuelan president’s comments about “liberating” Puerto Rico? I think it’s a bluff. I think he’s a clown. I think he’s a dictator. And I think you have to call him out. You have to call his bluff and you have to respond to his ridiculous statements with sophisticated ridicule. What do you think prompted his comments? The international discussion regarding the possible acquisition of Greenland and the annexation of Canada led him down a vintage Cold War rabbit hole of denouncing imperialism — and he looped us in. Do Puerto Ricans want to be liberated from the United States? An overwhelming majority do not. They would even disagree with the concept of being liberated. They don’t feel like they are involuntarily strapped to the U.S. An overwhelming majority supports union with the U.S., be that as a state or continuing as a commonwealth. A respectable minority supports independence. Where should Puerto Rico head in its clean energy transition? Puerto Rico law requires 100 percent of its electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2050. It should continue to strive towards the goal because just by having the goal, you improve your numbers. But my [three priorities] on energy are as follows: 1) stabilize, 2) make it more affordable and then 3) transition to clean energy sources.
Hopefully, you can do all three at the same time. But if for a while in the process of stabilizing or in the process of making [energy] more affordable you have to bring in less desirable energy sources, then so be it. I say that in part because ... we’re not going to spend the next four years with an administration that’s hostile to clean energy in a gridlock because we want clean energy and they don’t. Why did you decide you wanted to be the resident commissioner? I was upset with the path that my local political party was taking. It had been in decline for the last two elections. There was a sense that it would continue in decline, a sense that ended up being validated by a disastrous electoral result in every statewide race except mine. And I felt like the party needed renewal and the island would benefit from having a resident commissioner that — instead of coming to Congress and only talking about statehood — came to talk about the issues that affected the daily lives of Puerto Ricans: economic development, energy grid reconstruction, equal treatment of federal programs.
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| IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
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 Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) poses for a portrait in his temporary office on Capitol Hill, Jan. 17, 2025. | Francis Chung/POLITICO |
RUBEN’S MAVERICK STREAK — Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) didn’t see himself bucking his party the way his predecessors Kyrsten Sinema and the late John McCain did. But he explained to our Daniella Diaz why he may vote more with Republicans on immigration and border issues — the reason he believes Democrats lost so broadly in 2024. And more:
| | | TODAY’S CULTURE RECS EL GALLO LIFTS IRON MIKE: Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, one-time sparring partners, reunited at one of Trump’s inaugural balls, with Paul lifting Tyson on his shoulders. MISSING A BEAT: In our previous edition we told you about former hooper LiAngelo Ball getting a music deal. Well ... he performed at the Detroit Lions game over the weekend, and now fans are blaming him for the team’s playoff loss. STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: The University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics unveiled an eclectic list of 2025 winter-spring fellows that includes former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita and radio personality Charlamagne tha God. Edited by Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
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