the 14th Amendment<\/a> requires birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors.<\/p>\nThe relevant provision states, \u201cAll persons born or naturalized in the United States,\u00a0and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s unclear what \u201cjurisdiction\u201d means, particularly given that neither illegal immigration nor birth tourism existed at the time of the 14th Amendment\u2019s ratification in 1868.<\/p>\n
There was thus much discussion of \u201callegiance\u201d or \u201cdomicile\u201d both technical legal terms that could shift depending on a person\u2019s state of mind or intent to remain in the country (or not).<\/p>\n
Legitimate disputes<\/p>\n
Those who claim that the administration\u2019s legal arguments are frivolous or borne of xenophobic malice are simply wrong: These are hard questions and live disputes.<\/p>\n
But regardless, it very much looks like the justices will bite the bullet and rule squarely on the constitutional issue.<\/p>\n
For example, late in the ACLU\u2019s argument for the challengers, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked about a potential resolution on statutory grounds \u2014 that Trump\u2019s executive order goes against existing law, implying Congress could change birthright citizenship rules \u2014 but there seemed to be little appetite for that kind of compromise.<\/p>\n
Other key justices expressed significant skepticism of the administration\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
Chief Justice Roberts called Solicitor General John Sauer\u2019s examples of historic exceptions to birthright citizenship \u201cquirky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Neil Gorsuch characterized Sauer\u2019s supporting authorities as \u201cRoman law,\u201d while stumping Sauer \u2014 who otherwise performed better than the ACLU lawyer representing the challengers \u2014 with a question about whether Native Americans (who were made citizens by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924) would still be citizens under his approach.<\/p>\n
Justice Amy Coney Barrett said reinterpreting existing law and practice would be \u201cmessy in some applications.\u201d<\/p>\n
With only two justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, showing themselves to be in the administration\u2019s camp, there doesn\u2019t seem to be a way that the executive order can survive.<\/p>\n
Splintered opinions<\/p>\n
But we could end up with a splintered decision, with plenty of concurrences on the finer points of ratification debates, precedent \u2014 especially Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case granting citizenship to the children of noncitizen permanent residents \u2014 and statutory interpretation.<\/p>\n
President Trump won\u2019t like that at all, but it could be a winning issue for Republicans in the midterms, energizing not just the base but those many independents for whom immigration is a decisive issue.<\/p>\n
Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, writes the Shapiro\u2019s Gavel newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A U.S. Capitol Police officer steps in to calm tensions between a supporter of birthright citizenship and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[4205,537,4204,3198,3365,4203,535,64,4206,536],"class_list":{"0":"post-3429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-john-roberts","8":"tag-birth-tourism","9":"tag-birthright-citizenship","10":"tag-chief-justice-roberts","11":"tag-citizenship","12":"tag-executive-order","13":"tag-illegal-immigration","14":"tag-john-roberts","15":"tag-president-trump","16":"tag-solicitor-general-john-sauer","17":"tag-supreme-court"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116333307839497584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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