Posted on 04/02/2026 8:48:34 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on the Trump administration’s challenge to the decades-long practice of interpreting the 14th Amendment to allow foreigners to obtain American citizenship simply by being born within the boundaries of the country. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of this view, allowing any foreigner circumstantially (or intentionally) born on U.S. soil to be automatically adopted into the Union as a citizen, it will mean the end of actual American citizens taking the high court seriously.
As Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out, the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to black people and freed slaves after the Civil War. Making the point further, Thomas asked, “How much of the debates around the 14th Amendment had anything to do with immigration?” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer noted that there was very little, if any, which suggests that the intent of the 14th Amendment was never to be the international migration boondoggle it has become.
While Thomas appeared to recognize that reality, it was difficult to tell where the rest of the court stood on the issue at times — except for the other reliable conservative, Justice Samuel Alito.
But if the justices harbor any consideration of keeping the 14th Amendment migration train running by upholding the current bastardization of the amendment, it will signal to the American people the illegitimacy of even the highest legal authority in the land, ostensibly with a 6-3 conservative majority.
A SCOTUS decision to uphold birthright citizenship as currently applied would communicate that it means to follow in the footsteps of successive presidential administrations and Congresses, selling Americans’ jobs, land, and promises of freedom to the highest bidder, or simply giving them away to foreigners who cross the border illegally. Whereas many view the head of the judicial branch as a safeguard, upholding the Constitution when the executive branch and Congress overstep their bounds, a majority decision affirming unbounded birthright citizenship would suggest they too have no regard for the people who have a right to be here, and whose futures depend on the end of mass migration.
In his opening remarks, Sauer brought up the reality of “birth tourism,” pregnant foreigners coming to the United States in order to give birth on American soil and obtain citizenship with an anchor baby, who is automatically granted full citizenship under the current 14th Amendment framework. The issue is prominent in China, where there are actual businesses — reportedly more than 1,000 — that exist for achieving that goal, as Sauer pointed out.
Sauer’s introduction of the issue of birth tourism led to a potentially telling exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts, where Roberts asked about birth tourism’s prominence. Sauer cited the high number of such operations, stating,” No one knows for sure,” adding, “We are in a new world now.” Roberts seemed to reply flippantly: “It’s a new world, it’s the same Constitution.”
Roberts has consistently postured himself as the chief justice most intent on preserving the institution of the Supreme Court. He is suspected to have sided with majorities he may not actually agree with, in order to make the ruling more acceptable to the American people (a 6-3 decision is more convincing than a 5-4 decision, as the argument goes).
That is what makes his line of questioning both confusing and concerning, because it suggests he believes the proper constitutional interpretation of the 14th Amendment would continue to allow these birthright farms to send foreigners to the United States so their babies can receive rubber-stamp citizenship.
If the conclusion from the Supreme Court is that any country on earth can lay claim to the American homeland, so long as they send enough people to give birth here, then Americans will have no choice but to reject that notion out of hand. Such a decision would further deteriorate confidence in the Supreme Court, leading the American people to reject it as a legitimate authority on the Constitution altogether.
Domicle is not mentioned in the 14th amendment. Citizens are either born or naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. There are two exceptions to this.
If the Roberts Court rules that Wong still holds, but that section 93 is dicta that was wrong, they would not be breaking any new ground, just reaffirming the actual narrow ruling of Wong.
-PJ
1.5 million Chinese, plus who knows how many Muslin Brotherhood birthright citizens there are, but all of them raise in their home countries can come here and could vote in US elections, join the military and whatever else any other American can do.
They have the potential, right now, of changing the US into whatever their masters tell them.
Codifying it will increase the birthright babies exponentially.
If SCOTUS upholds the current national suicide pact, and if you are younger than say 50, expect to live under tyranny in your old age.
§5 of the 14th Amendment grants Congress the authority to enforce the provisions of this article through appropriate legislation.
President Trump should urge congressional Republicans to support his Birthright Executive Order, and Republican voters should ensure that they do.
You are 100% correct. This is the only way to solve this Pandora’s box. The SC and the President can suggest, but it is only through legislation that citizenship can be defined, and we need to get on the stick to get it done sooner rather than later or never.
I wouldn't want Dershowitz to weigh in too much on the issue, and I'd especially wouldn't want him whispering in Trump's ear with his forked tongue. Dershowitz has stated that the wording of the 14th Amendment supports birthright citizenship even for illegals and "birth tourists", completely ignoring original intent. Moreover, Dershowitz is also an immigration liberal.
His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin's Case, 7 Coke, 6a, 'strong enough to make a natural subject, for, if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject'; and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, 'If born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.' It can hardly be denied that an alien is completely subject to the political jurisdiction of the country in which he resides, seeing that, as said by Mr. Webster, when secretary of state, in his report to the president on Thrasher's case in 1851, and since repeated by this court: 'Independently of a residence with intention to continue such residence; independently of any domiciliation; independently of the taking of any oath of allegiance, or of renouncing any former allegiance,—it is well known that by the public law an alien, or a stranger born, for so long a time as he continues within the dominions of a foreign government, owes obedience to the laws of that government, and may be punished for treason or other crimes as a native-born subject might be, unless his case is varied by some treaty stipulations.' Executive Documents H. R. No. 10, 1st Sess. 32d Cong. p. 4; 6 Webster's Works, 526; U. S. v. Carlisle, 16 Wall. 147, 155; Calvin's Case, 7 Coke, 6a; Ellesmere, Postnati, 63; 1 Hale, P. C. 62; 4 Bl. Comm. 74, 92. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory A non-citizen can have a child here and the child will be a citizen of the United States.
A non-citizen can have a child here and the child will be a citizen of the United States.
The Supreme Court has Article III limitations on what it can hear in an appellate capacity. It must be limited to the case or controversy before it.
Read the sections that I cited where the Supreme Court says what is the question before it, and where it says what the decision is that is affirmed.
93 is irrelevant. I discussed 93 in my post.
-PJ
Maybe it’s time for the Republicans to expand the court? ha ha ha ha, how stupid of me to think Republicans have the backbone for that.
he says it himself...It is only his opinion...
It was John Bingham’s opinion too.
No party stays in power forever.Do you want to set a precedent for Democrats expanding the court even further?
the court is fine as it is and has been for over 150 years.
What peril? They are not elected. If they betray us, we have no recourse but pitchforks. Even then, it depends on who is president how how much support he or she gets from Congress when openings occur.
Magic word...”opinion”...not settled...
Collins, Murkowski and Romney voted to confirm.
The final vote was 53-47.
Thanks to rinos, FJB didn’t need his numbnuts VP Kamala.
I think the court doesn't have to do anything new, they just have to reaffirm what the ruling on Wong Kim Ark was and was not.
From an Article III appellate perspective, the only things that matter in Wong were sections 3 (the question presented), 118 (the question answered), and 119 (order affirmed). The rest are dicta.
Based on how the court ruled in Wong, President Trump should be in the clear to move ahead with stopping "birthright citizenship" for nonimmigrant and illegal aliens without the Roberts Court having to issue any new rulings at all, just settle the misapplications of the actual ruling in Wong.
-PJ
As Bingham is the prime proponent of the amendment, what he tells Congress it means is exactly what Congress believed it to mean.
And we have proof.
“ Republican voters should ensure that they do.”
Except a lot of Republican voters are not opposed to birthright citizenship.
Whether Black slaves were citizens is irrelevant to whether kids of immigrants were citizens after 1787. The current discussion is about children of immigrants ... and immigrants.
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