By Joan Biskupic Chief Supreme Court Analyst

(CNN) — As the Supreme Court considers the future of birthright citizenship, some advocates fighting President Donald Trump are speaking directly to conservative justices on how fundamental one’s faith can be to identity and citizenship.

Several groups that have filed briefs in the case to be argued Wednesday refer to the moral imperative of welcoming strangers (with references to scripture) and call attention to the kind of practical dilemmas believers might face if the Trump administration restricted the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee that all children born in the US are citizens.

They are addressing a Catholic court majority that has favored religious interests in disputes over education funding, Christian displays and various government policies.

Many legal analysts across the ideological spectrum believe Trump’s ideas here are radical and bound to fail. But the high court has been receptive to other elements of Trump’s bold agenda, and immigrant-rights advocates and other challengers have brought forth a variety of arguments, including related to religion.

Lawyers for Project Rousseau, which serves vulnerable young people, argues that the justices should consider children who are unable to prove their parenthood and citizenship. That would include some babies born to members of religious sects, such as the Amish and Mennonites, that shun formal birth documents.

If the Trump administration prevails, Project Rousseau contends, such religious families would be forced “to decide between their Free Exercise rights and their birthright citizenship rights.”

Ilan Rosenberg, lead counsel on the brief, also invoked the justices’ recent interest in “Safe Haven Laws,” sometimes seen as an alternative to abortion, as the group focused on babies abandoned at birth.

He quoted Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s observation from 2022 oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that “in all 50 states, you can terminate parental rights by relinquishing a child” after birth and perhaps leaving the child at a hospital or fire station.

Rosenberg told the justices that a child anonymously surrendered under a Safe Haven Law, “would never be able to prove what the government proposes as essential to citizenship under the 14th Amendment: the citizenship status of his parents.”

The Supreme Court in Dobbs reversed the constitutional right to abortion guaranteed in the 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision.

The court’s majority has increasingly sided with religious conservatives elsewhere, including to uphold a coach’s prayer at public school football games, to expand state funding of sectarian education and to keep Christian symbols on government property.

One brief spotlights that the American colonies were established by people fleeing persecution for their religious practices.

“The enshrinement of birthright citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment,” wrote a group of 57 faith-based organizations, “has a deep connection with the Nation’s history as a haven for those escaping religious persecution, including the forebearers and current members of many of amici’s faith groups. Several of the Thirteen Colonies were founded by groups, such as Quakers, escaping religious persecution or seeking to secure religious freedom.”

Among the organizations that joined the brief, in addition to the Friends General Conference (Quaker), are the Alliance of Baptists, American Jewish Committee, Council on American-Islamic Relations, National Council of Churches, and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

Why the anti-immigrant ‘Know-Nothings’ are important here

Such religiously imbued briefs are among more than 60 “friend of the court” filings in the case of Trump v. Barbara testing the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, which dictates that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

About two-thirds of those amicus curiae briefs support the challengers. They contend the Fourteenth Amendment’s history and court precedent entrenched virtually unrestricted birthright citizenship.

Trump’s lawyers have fastened onto the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” and contend that anyone in the country unlawfully or temporarily, such as on a student visa, is not completely subject to US jurisdiction.

Some groups joining the Trump administration have offered alternative interpretations of the history and tradition of the Fourteenth Amendment. One filing with a religious theme came from the Christian Family Coalition of Florida. It contended that allowing birthright citizenship for “illegal aliens and transients” would invite people who promote religious bigotry.

Lower court judges ruled against the Trump move to limit birthright citizenship, finding that it breached the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and conflicts with an 1898 milestone. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the court ruled that a man who was born of Chinese citizens living in the United States was a US citizen.

Many of the amicus curiae briefs fighting Trump reinforce arguments regarding the longstanding history and tradition of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Among the various briefs touching on religion from the challengers is a provocative argument recalling the anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant hostility of the Know Nothings in the mid-1800s.

The brief, led by historian Tyler Anbinder, contends that despite the significant political power of the Know Nothings at the time, the group accepted birthright citizenship and never proposed limiting it even for children of the immigrants they wanted deported.

“(T)he Government asks the Court to adopt a position that even the Know Nothings – the most successful, most extreme anti-immigrant political movement in American history – never sought: to restrict birthright citizenship based on the political allegiance of a child’s parent,” the history and law professors wrote.

‘I was a stranger and you took Me in’

Separately, the brief filed by 57 faith-based organizations covering Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus and Jews, points to the religious tradition of welcoming strangers.

“In Christianity,” this brief says, for example, “the New Testament teaches, ‘For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in.’ Matthew 25:35.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh pointedly called attention to the Biblical message of Matthew during his 2018 confirmation hearings, telling senators at the outset, “I keep in mind the message of Matthew 25 and try to serve the least fortunate among us.”

After his contentious Senate hearings, Kavanaugh at a White House ceremony again referred to the Gospel of Matthew. “In the wake of the Senate confirmation process, my approach to life also remains the same. I will continue to heed the message of Matthew 25. I will continue to volunteer and serve the least fortunate among us.”

Kavanaugh is one of six justices on the conservative wing who are practicing Catholics or were raised Catholic. The others are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett; Neil Gorsuch was raised Catholic and is now an Episcopalian.

A seventh Catholic justice, Sonia Sotomayor, anchors the liberal wing with Elena Kagan, a Jewish justice, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Protestant.

Against that heavily Catholic backdrop, lawyers for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted a forceful brief arguing the immorality of Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship.

“The intended and unintended effects of the Executive Order,” the Catholic Bishops’ brief asserts, “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.”

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