Nearly Half Of State AGs Ask SCOTUS To End ‘Birthright Citizenship’

The attorneys general of 24 states filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the Trump administration’s attempt to stop the invasion-through-legal-loophole of “birthright citizenship.”

Attorneys general Jonathan Skrmetti, R-Tenn., and Brenna Bird, R-Iowa, led the charge alongside nearly every Republican state attorney general in the country with the 37-page brief asking the nation’s high court to side with the Trump administration’s argument that the 14th Amendment clearly does not allow for any person born on American soil to automatically become an American citizen.

After President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office properly interpreting the 14th Amendment, and discarding ridiculous left-wing arguments about “birthright citizenship” — which have allowed illegals to stay in the United States with anchor babies for decades — Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon sued in order to protect illegals over Americans.

“The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn’t square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War,” Skrmetti said in a press release. “If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country. Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents’ immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship. This case could allow the Supreme Court to resolve a constitutional question with far-reaching implications for the States and our nation.”

After the four states sued, low-court tyrants in the federal judiciary decided to issue nationwide injunctions, which was met with a major rebuke at the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits...

Nothing would make me happier than seeing birthright citizenship ended, but unfortunately we're stuck with the wording of the 14th amendment, i.e. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State".

Obviously, the original intent of this amendment wasn't to make it so that a pregnant woman from another country can illegally run across the border and give birth to an automatic US citizen. However, the wording does create a loophole that allows open borders enthusiasts to challenge any effort at deporting the children of illegals who are born in the US.

It seems to me that the best solution to this problem is to put an end to "anchor babies" as a route for parents and other relatives to come to the US. If illegals give birth on US soil and want to argue that their kid is a US citizen entitled to stay, we can just say, "fine - the kid can stay, but you have to leave the country - your kid will go to foster care here in the US, and you'll never see him or her again." 90% or more would rather just leave the country quietly and take their would-be anchor baby with them given that choice.

American citizenship has to be worth more than it is when someone who is 8 3/4 months pregnant comes here on vacation and drops a kid a week later -especially when they are suddenly eligible for massive lifetime benefits (at taxpayer expense) and their parents (or at least the mother) can’t be deported. Those who wrote the 14th Amendment understood that, specifically debating (and coming up with a negative answer) whether the child of a foreign diplomat born in the U.S. was a U.S. citizen because of the 14th Amendment. Why? Because that child was not “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” because that person (through his or her parents) was the citizen or subject of a foreign country.

Note that the concept of being “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” does NOT come into being because someone must obey various laws (like traffic laws, criminal laws, various tort laws, etc.). Why? Because ANYONE present in ANY country (or territory thereof) is required to obey local laws. Being subject to the jurisdiction of a country is different - this means that you’re a full-fledged member of that society (for better or worse), because you can get a passport from there, be drafted into their military or some kind of civilian service as an alternative (assuming that said country has that kind of law), vote in local and national elections, etc. IOW, it is FAR more involved than merely being required to obey local criminal and civil laws. SOOO, how does this apply to the children of illegal aliens? Simple: their parents (or at least the mother) has made a decision to NOT be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States by the very fact of coming here (and staying, whether for hours or years) outside of the specified rules for doing so. They are citizens of a foreign country, and thus so are their children, regardless of where the mother happened to be physically located when that child was born.

This should be relatively simple for the Supreme Court to decide upon - if they’re willing to take the heat from one side or the other. Oftentimes, of course, they aren’t and fail to make a decision based on the case being a “political issue.” We shall see soon enough.

“This should be relatively simple for the Supreme Court to decide upon”

Only if they ignore immigration history for the last 160 years. At the time the 14th Amendment was adopted, there was no such thing as “immigration enforcement”. If you got here, you got to stay and eventually you could petition for citizenship. Your children if born here were citizens by default. The US had plenty of room and immigration was encouraged and very loosely regulated.

It was not until the 1880’s that there began a backlash against unregulated immigration. This is when we began to see large waves of people coming from Europe in numbers that dwarfed previous years. Even then, getting into the US was not that difficult and both our northern and southern borders were wide open. It was not until 1920 that a Border Patrol was established by the Federal government and this was not as much an effort to stop immigration as it was an effort to stop criminal Mexican gangs from crossing the border and committing crimes in the U.S.

Our immigration history, while both interesting and part of the debate on this matter, is (with all due respect) largely irrelevant as a matter of law. What IS relevant is how the words of the 14th Amendment were understood at the time it was ratified. This understanding can be (and oftentimes is, in the case of amendments ratified after the Bill of Rights) informed by the debates surrounding the proposal and passage of an amendment in Congress (mainly because there is a Congressional Record, which is a generally complete record of what happens on the floor of Congress). As I mentioned in my first post (to which you responded), the issue of who would and wouldn’t be considered to automatically be a citizen upon birth in the United States was discussed and (in my opinion) renders the “birthright citizenship” of people born to illegal immigrants invalid.

Note that this Court has, of late, made a VERY important point of making rulings based on either the plain text or the original intent (as demonstrated by laws existing and enforced at the time, or close in time to, whichever Constitutional provision at issue was adopted). This has certainly been the case with a host of gun-related cases since “Heller” was decided in 2008. I say that knowing and acknowledging that the 3 liberal/radical female Justices do NOT agree, and ALWAYS vote the opposite way…but they’re outnumbered unless Barrett and Roberts both go soft, but Barrett usually doesn’t, despite a lot of (undeserved, IMHO) criticism.

Moving to the birthright citizenship issue:

“The 14th Amendment was intended to overrule one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious decisions, its 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Scott was born enslaved in Virginia and was later sold to an army surgeon who took his slaves with him to army postings in parts of the United States where slavery was prohibited. When Scott returned to Missouri, he filed lawsuits in federal court, seeking freedom for himself and his family. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court threw out his case. It held that a Black person whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as enslaved persons was not entitled to any protection from the federal courts because he was not a U.S. citizen.” https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/02/a-history-of-birthright-citizenship-at-the-supreme-court/

Note that those in favor of unlimited birthright citizenship rely upon the 1898 “Wong Kim Ark” case, which ruled that he was a citizen by birth, even though his parents were not citizens at the time he was born. However, that case can be distinguished from the current set of cases, for a very simple reason: Wong‘s parents were permanent residents of the United States. That means that they had subjected themselves the full jurisdiction of the United States government, as well as the state in which they lived. They were no longer only subjects of the emperor of China, they had (by their actions) indicated that they wanted to be subject to ONLY US jurisdiction (and were going about that process in a way that was consistent with the laws of the time). Today’s advocates of unlimited birthright citizenship maintain that a child popped out of a woman on vacation in the United States is a US citizen because of the Wong Kim Ark interpretation of the 14th amendment, without understanding that a tourist, or an illegal immigrant, remains a subject of their home country and has (by their actions - or lack thereof) indicated their intentions.

Now, I don’t believe that even if the SCOTUS rules the way that I think they should, that they will rule that such births to illegals BEFORE the ruling are invalid as to the baby being a citizen; instead, I believe that it will be a prospective thing. But, as mentioned here and in my original post, I think that the decision will be made (IF it is made) based upon the text and original intent/understanding of the framers of the 14th Amendment.

Thank you for reminding me that squishy ass “conservatives” still exist.

You seem to be a little slow. Both the other poster and I made clear that we are against birthright citizenship. However, the wording of the 14th amendment is such that attempts to deport anchor babies and and will inevitably be challenged in court, barring a new amendment to the Constitution. Unlike you, I live in reality where things don't just happen by decree, however desirable they might be.

That is why the most effective way to get around birthright citizenship is to deport the illegal parents (who even immigration liberals will concede are not protected by the 14th amendment), who will take their would-be anchor baby with them in almost all cases. I suppose your alternative is what - make the legal challenges just go away because "brent13a" thinks they should?

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