WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump was set to make a historic visit to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, attending arguments over the legality of a policy he considers crucial to his hardline approach toward immigration - a directive he signed on his first day back in office that would limit birthright citizenship.
Outside the neoclassical courthouse on Capitol Hill, demonstrators gathered ahead of the arguments, some holding anti-Trump signs including ones reading "Trump must
go now."
The court has backed Trump in a series of rulings issued on an emergency basis since he returned to the presidency last year. Those decisions came on matters including immigration, mass federal layoffs, cutting foreign aid, dismantling the Education Department, banning transgender people from the military and other areas.
But the court on February 20 ruled against Trump in a major case testing the legality of the sweeping global tariffs he imposed last year under a law meant for use in national emergencies. Since the tariffs ruling, Trump has lashed out repeatedly at the Supreme Court and the six justices who ruled against him in that case.
The court said it is not aware of a president attending arguments in modern times, meaning since its current building opened in 1935. There are examples of 19th century presidents arguing cases before the court - though not while in office - including John Quincy Adams, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison.
The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump during his first term in office - Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.
Barrett's appointment gave the court its current conservative super-majority and ushered in an epoch in which the court has moved American law dramatically to the right including rulings rolling back abortion rights, rejecting race-conscious collegiate admissions policies, limiting the power of U.S. regulatory agencies and more.
Trump and senior officials in his administration often have denounced judges who have issued rulings against his policies, sometimes in highly personal terms.
Three of the court's six conservative justices - Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Gorsuch and Barrett - joined with the court's three liberal members in ruling that Trump had overstepped his authority in imposing tariffs.
Trump was incensed at Gorsuch and Barrett in particular, calling them on the day of that ruling "an embarrassment to their families." And last week, Trump kept up his condemnation of his two appointees, saying that "they sicken me because they're bad for our country."
Trump after the tariffs ruling said he was "ashamed" of the three conservative justices who ruled against him, calling them "fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical-left Democrats." RINO, meaning "Republican in name only," is a term sometimes used by conservative Republicans to insult fellow Republicans viewed as disloyal to the party.
Trump after the ruling also claimed that the court "has been swayed by foreign interests," but declined to provide any evidence.
A lower court blocked Trump's executive order directing U.S. agencies not to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States if neither parent is an American citizen or legal permanent resident, also called a "green card" holder.
Trump's administration has said that granting citizenship to virtually anyone born on U.S. soil has created incentives for illegal immigration and led to "birth tourism," by which foreigners travel to the United States to give birth and secure citizenship for their children.
Trump wrote on social media last year: "Birthright Citizenship was not meant for people taking vacations to become permanent Citizens of the United States of America, and bringing their families with them, all the time laughing at the 'SUCKERS' that we are!"
Trump added: "But the drug cartels love it! We are, for the sake of being politically correct, a STUPID Country but, in actuality, this is the exact opposite of being politically correct, and it is yet another point that leads to the dysfunction of America."
(Reporting by Andrew Chung, John Kruzel, Jan Wolfe and Blake Brittain; Editing by Will Dunham)
