By Douglas V. Gibbs
The United States Supreme Court recently struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end the unconstitutional concept of birthright citizenship. According to the High Court, mere presence on American soil at birth guarantees citizenship; a decision that fundamentally undermines the original intent of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
In a split decision, Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson joined Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett to form a 5-4 majority, effectively granting citizenship to virtually everyone born within U.S. borders regardless of their parents’ allegiance or legal status.
At the heart of this case lies the proper interpretation of the Citizenship Clause’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The majority interprets “jurisdiction” as merely “legal jurisdiction,” being subject to American laws while physically present in the country. However, the authors of the clause intended “political jurisdiction,” which they defined as “not subject to a foreign power.”
The historical record is clear on this point. The same authors of the Citizenship Clause also sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which uses identical language. During congressional debates, Senators Jacob Howard and Lyman Trumbull explicitly defined “jurisdiction” as “full jurisdiction,” meaning not subject to any foreign power. They clarified that mere birth on American soil was insufficient for citizenship, specifically exempting “Indians not taxed” and “children of aliens, foreigners, diplomats, ambassadors and other foreign ministers and consuls” from automatic citizenship despite their birth on U.S. soil (Congressional Globe, May 30, 1866).
Despite this historical evidence, Chief Roberts claimed there was “scant evidence” to support the government’s originalist definition. Instead, he concluded that “children born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States” “satisfy both elements of the Citizenship Clause” and are therefore “citizens at birth.”
In his powerful dissent, Justice Samuel Alito called the ruling both “one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court” and “a serious mistake.” “Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption,” Alito argued, “shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way. Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.”
Justice Clarence Thomas similarly criticized the decision, stating that it “devalues citizenship” and that the majority’s historical account was “not historically accurate.” He lamented that the ruling “adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”
The majority’s reasoning relies heavily on English common law, noting that under early English law, children born in Britain automatically became British subjects. “This view crossed the Atlantic with the colonists, and was adopted with little fanfare after the Revolution,” Roberts wrote. However, this comparison is deeply flawed. The majority conveniently ignores that under British law, while birth on imperial soil granted subject status, full rights, including inheritance rights, were reserved for “natural born subjects,” which required having a British father at the time of birth. This distinction demonstrates that British law itself recognized different levels of “jurisdiction” based on parental allegiance.
The Court also leaned heavily on the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, where Ark argued that since he was born in San Francisco he was a citizen. While proponents of expansive birthright citizenship cite this case as precedent, they conveniently ignore a crucial detail: Wong’s parents had established permanent domicile in the United States, thereby satisfying the “full jurisdiction” requirement. This nuance is ignored because it contradicts the leftist narrative of unconditional birthright citizenship.
The 14th Amendment was originally adopted to repudiate the Supreme Court’s infamous 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied citizenship to Black people whose ancestors were brought to America as slaves. The Citizenship Clause was specifically written to reverse the language of that ruling. The authors of the clause, however, also knew it would be used as the definition for citizenship.
Like Roe v. Wade, this decision is not set in stone and can be reversed. I believe that day may come when our enemies use this ruling to accelerate their invasion of our country through illegal migration and birth tourism. When that crisis reaches its breaking point, perhaps the Court will finally recognize its mistake and restore citizenship to its rightful place – not as a mere accident of geography, but as the precious inheritance of those who owe their allegiance solely to the United States of America.
Or, at least that is what I am hoping.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
