Free Republic

There is now a modern twist to be considered in the birthright citizenship debate.Last week, our friends at The Federalist ran a couple of pieces — one by Brianna Lyman and the other by John Daniel Davidson — on the opportunity currently before the U.S. Supreme Court with respect to birthright citizenship and the legal absurdities our current practice encompasses.If you’re familiar at all with the history of this highly unusual practice, you know that it emanates from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which reads…All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the...

On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear challenges to President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment automatically makes all babies born on American territory citizens. Trump’s effort to overturn the traditional reading of the constitutional text and history should not succeed. Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment provided a constitutional definition of citizenship for the first time. It declares that "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 wherein they reside." In antebellum America, states...

The Supreme Court on Friday said it will hear arguments in a case that will determine if President Donald Trump can undo automatic citizenship for people born in the United States. Trump, on his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20, issued an executive order that said babies born in the U.S. more than 30 days after that order were not entitled to be issued citizenship documents if their parents were temporary visitors or illegal aliens.

The battle over who qualifies as an American at birth has officially reached the highest court in the land. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the historic challenge to President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order restricting birthright citizenship, setting the stage for what could be the most consequential interpretation of the 14th Amendment in more than a century. Trump’s order—one of the signature actions of his America First immigration agenda—asserts that children born to illegal aliens on U.S. soil do not automatically receive citizenship, countering decades of bureaucratic interpretation and closing what critics call one of...

Election integrity was a key element in President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. In March of 2025, shortly after resuming office, President Trump signed an executive order (EO) intended to increase election security and assure election integrity in American elections. A key component of that EO was the requirement for voters to provide proof of citizenship, establishing that they are eligible to cast their vote in federal elections, before being allowed to cast a ballot. That doesn't seem an unreasonable requirement, unless you're a Democrat. A U.S. District judge has now overturned that provision of the president's order. Donald Trump’s request...

(Oct. 26, 2025) — INTRODUCTION Well, well, well… some sanity and rational thought may at last be seeping into the question and analysis of the so-called “birthright citizenship” issue under the 14th Amendment. As discussed by your humble servant earlier this year here, the 14th Amendment birthright citizenship issue is different, but closely related, to the “natural born Citizen” (“nbC”) issue under Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5, the Constitution’s “Eligibility Clause.” Because that which follows may become convoluted, readers may wish to keep a supply of their favorite caffeinated beverage nearby. As a preliminary matter, that clause, of course,...

FIRST ON FOX: Nearly all Republican attorneys general asked the Supreme Court on Friday to side with President Donald Trump in his fight to curtail birthright citizenship, offering a wide show of support for one of the president’s most controversial agenda items. The 24 states, led by Iowa’s Brenna Bird and Tennessee’s Jonathan Skrmetti, argued in an amicus brief that the 14th Amendment, which addresses birthright citizenship, was not designed to give automatic citizenship to babies born to mothers living in the country illegally or temporarily visiting.

A South Florida business is turning childbirth into a passport to the American dream. The booming business is called Have My Baby in Miami and offers maternity services to foreigners. While President Donald Trump is pushing to end birthright citizenship, experts say the practice is constitutional. Have My Baby in Miami is a concierge service for foreigners who want to have their baby on U.S. soil. “Once you arrive in the USA, we recommend you obtain an American SIM card,” the company says on its website. The Have My Baby in Miami website says it offers “complete logistical support.” The...

A second illegal migrant hit in the mass shooting at a Dallas ICE facility has died from his injuries, according to his “shattered” wife, who is expecting their fifth child any day now. Mexican national Miguel Angel Garcia-Hernandez, 32, was shot at least eight times during last Wednesday’s sniper-style attack and was rushed to Parkland Hospital in a critical condition before dying of his injuries, CBS News reported. Garcia-Hernandez, who was in the US illegally, was detained by ICE after being arrested on Aug. 8 for a DUI, Gauffeny previously said.

The Trump administration has filed a pair of petitions to the Supreme Court asking the justices to hear appeals on its birthright citizenship order, cases which could add to the growing list of questions related to President Donald Trump‘s actions that the high court will consider in its upcoming term.The two petitions appeared on the Supreme Court’s public docket Monday, after being filed late Friday, and they urged the justices to take appeals in both cases, which were brought by Democrat-led states and a group of people who could be affected by Trump’s order.The question presented to the high court...

I have written several posts on California Federal District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s temporary restraining order more or less preventing ICE from operating in California’s Central District — the district covering the seven counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. The counties’ population of nearly 20 million people is the largest of any federal judicial district in the country. I wrote about Judge Frimpong’s crimping of ICE in posts that are accessible here. It’s crazy, baby. That’s my view. ... By a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court order has stayed Judge...

The diversity-visa jihadi has rolled over the Democrats’ audacious plan to win a no-strings amnesty for millions of young DACA illegals during the Christmas budget fight by using activists and skewed polls to bluff and intimidate GOP leaders.That power-grab was first blocked by President Donald Trump’s October 8 demand that any amnesty complies with his poll-tested list of immigration principles. On Nov. 1, he dramatically stepped up the pressure, telling the media directly that he wanted a quick end to the diversity visa lottery and chain migration: So we want to immediately work with Congress on the Diversity Lottery Program, on terminating it,...

(Sep. 6, 2025) — In a striking opinion issued last month, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s opinion that now 75-year-old Roberto Moncada, though born in the United States, should not have been considered a “birthright” citizen. The decision was first flagged to this writer by CDR. Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. (Ret), who on August 30 posted to his blog a video from attorney and broadcaster Robert Goveia providing an analysis of the panel’s 25-page opinion. Born in New York City in 1950 to a Nicaraguan diplomat, Moncada worked in the United...

The government is temporarily suspending new applications for a scheme allowing refugees to bring their family members to the UK. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the move, in force from this week, would mean refugees face the same restrictions as other migrants hoping to bring family to join them in the UK. This generally means someone must earn at least £29,000 a year and provide suitable accommodation, while their family member may need to demonstrate a basic level of English. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said "tweaking the family reunion rules are not enough" to deal with the scale...

YES‼️Section 8 Update: Donald Trump has directed HUD, the US Housing Department, to not only remove ALL non-citizens from Section 8 but to also remove mixed non-citizen families If there is an illegal in the home YOU WILL BE REMOVED “A full fledged audit of all residents in The United States for citizenship and will begin evicting families that are mixed status” “For example, if you are a parent who is an illegal immigrant but you receive section eight through your children for housing, you can be evicted. This is part of an audit Donald Trump has instructed to Scott...

A 12-year-old boy says he was brutally attacked by a classmate armed with brass knuckles. The family of the 12-year-old victim is speaking out, saying not only was their son bullied and attacked, but they also allege that the school failed to protect him. What they're saying: According to the family, Damian had been bullied by another male student all week. It was the first week of school for students at James A Foshay Learning Center in Exposition Park. It started as taunts and pushes but quickly escalated. On Friday, Aug. 22, Damian said the bully pulled him from class....

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just ruled that a man born in New York City in 1950 is NOT an American citizen. The court affirmed what the Constitution’s framers and generations of Americans have always understood: the Fourteenth Amendment does not grant automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats.

The CASA ruling has been handed down, and rogue judges and unhinged liberals are hardest hit. While it doesn’t address the issue of birthright citizenship per se, it did strike down the national injunction power that district judges have been abusing since the outset of the second Trump presidency. SCOTUSblog set up the issue: Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts' nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states. And in a 6-3 ruling, the Court ruled:...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday said President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order is unconstitutional. In a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court upheld a nationwide injunction against Trump’s order. The three-judge panel included: Majority: Judge Gould (Clinton), Judge Hawkins (Clinton) – Dissent: Judge Bumatay (Trump). “The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,” the majority wrote.

In epic news for the MAGA movement and its mass deportation agenda, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) has pushed forward legislation that, if passes, will finally put an end to birthright citizenship, codifying into federal law what President Trump has tried to accomplish via executive order. As background, the 14th Amendment’s provision that made all former slaves citizens of the United States after the US Civil War has since been used to enshrine the concept of “birthright citizenship,” meaning that anyone who is born here is a citizen even if neither parent is an American citizen, or even here legally. Because...