Free Republic

Heads up, faithful P&E readers: this is big. The Supreme Court has released its decision in Trump v. Barbara, the “birthright citizenship” case that has attracted much attention since President Trump issued his Executive Order 14160 immediately after assuming office for his second term. Cutting to the chase, the Court in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts has today invalidated the Executive Order. While the decision, of course, will have massive impact on 14th Amendment scholarship, it might well have an equal or greater impact on the different, yet related issue of who can be (or who cannot be)...

1776, Not 1608: What the Supreme Court Got Wrong on Birthright CitizenshipChief Justice Roberts forgot the Declaration of Independence.Chief Justice John Roberts begins the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship opinion in Westminster in 1608 with Calvin’s Case and the English law of royal subjectship.I would begin in Philadelphia in 1776.Between those two places—and those two moments—lies the American Revolution. And the Revolution changed more than who governed America. It changed the very foundation of political membership.That is the central problem with the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara. The Court’s opinion is learned, careful, and historically rich. Chief Justice Roberts...

When Senator Jacob Howard explained the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause, he said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States." Most people today read this statement and assume Howard was listing four separate categories of people who would not receive birthright citizenship: Foreigners Aliens People who belong to families of ambassadors Foreign ministers This interpretation has shaped decades of constitutional debate, but it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Howard structured his sentence....

Official transcript from the US Senate on May 30, 1866. Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the 14th Amendment: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens...” SCOTUS got this ruling 100% wrong. A total travesty.

Since the first days of his second term as president, Donald Trump has been pushing back against a constitutional right he says has been taken advantage of for too long - what he calls "Birthright Citizenship." A new analysis from Pew Research shows, following a 40 percent drop from 2006 to 2016, a rapid rise in the number of births to unauthorized mothers in the United States from 2019 to 2023, which means about 9% of all 3.6 million babies born were to authorized immigrant mothers or those with temporary legal status. (TNND) “It had to do with the babies...

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship as we have known it. The court’s eventual opinion in the case, Trump v. Barbara, will almost certainly hinge on how the justices interpret the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which says: “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.” The court will probably also respond to the first words of the president’s March 19 brief, which asserts that...

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...

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...

@ThomasEWoods Trump is right about birthright citizenship (14th Amendment )

Defending Education is taking parental rights to court, suing the state of Colorado over its outrageous and arguably unconstitutional new groomer law. You might remember the recently passed Colorado legislation to fund castration of “trans” kids with taxpayer dollars and in spite of parents' wishes, to mandate pro-trans policies in schools, to criminalize “deadnaming,” and to take supposed “misgendering” into account in custody cases. Defending Education, an organization that stands for parents and against woke indoctrination in schools, is suing the Democrat-run state over the extremely harmful legislation. Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, Protect Kids Colorado, Do No Harm, and Dr....

While trying to catch President Donald Trump’s solicitor general nominee in a “gotcha” moment, Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin apparently defended enforcement of the infamous Supreme Court ruling that upheld the internment of more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans during World War II. “Let’s go back to Korematsu — describe for me that circumstance that you think relieved an official from obeying a court order,” Durbin said to solicitor general nominee Dean John Sauer. “As bad as it was, that court order was followed for years, was it not?” In Korematsu v. U.S., the Supreme Court upheld the internment of...

The Obergefell ruling rode rough-shod over religions and dozens of state constitutions on the bases of a moral — not legal — opinion.In late January, the Idaho House of Representatives passed a memorandum calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to “reverse” its 2015 gay marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, “and restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.” The memo passed 46 to 24 in the House and is heading to the Idaho Senate. If it passes the senate, it will be sent on to the Supreme Court as one more formal encouragement that...

🚨 #BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan & @JudiciaryGOP file an amicus brief in support of President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.Read the Western District of Washington brief here: https://t.co/cEYqE3LYMERead the District of…— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) February 3, 2025Link to the amicus brief: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/86-2.pdf

If you were wondering how long it would take for Democrats to sue the Trump administration, we have an answer. With the ink barely dry, eighteen Democrat state attorneys general, four additional Democrat state AGs, and a collection of outside groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union all filed federal lawsuits over President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. Their argument, that the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship for practically anyone born here, is flatly wrong as a matter of law. The courts should...

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah., took NBC News to task for "selectively omitting" a key part of the 14th Amendment in a question about birthright citizenship during an interview with President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday… "All persons born … in the United States, *and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,* shall be citizens of the United States," Lee wrote on X, highlighting the missing words in asterisks. "Those words matter," he added. The senator continued to break down the issue in a lengthy 12-part thread. "Congress has the power to define what it means to be born in the United States ‘and...

President-elect Donald Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil by illegal migrant parents could put to rest a hot-button constitutional debate that’s loomed over the country for decades. The incoming president has repeatedly vowed to end birthright citizenship immediately upon entering office, one of the more ambitious agenda items within his immigration enforcement platform. While the proposal has divided border hawks and immigration advocates, both sides generally agree the debate boils down to interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the conclusion of which will likely fall to the Supreme Court.“Our position is that the 14th Amendment...

After California agreed that enforcing its licensing requirement was unconstitutionally irrational, the court ruled that small business owner Jay Fink is free to help Californians stand up to spam.. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin has permanently enjoined the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services from enforcing its private-investigator licensing requirement against anti-spam entrepreneur Jay Fink. The order declares that forcing Jay to get a license to run his business is so irrational that it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. “I’m thankful that I won’t have to worry about losing my livelihood anymore,” said Jay, who...

George Washington University class-action settlement for COVID shutdown approved with more money for students, less for lawyers. Mere "overlap between a religious and political view" doesn't negate Title VII’s religious protections, 8th Circuit says.. If COVID-19 litigation were like the virus itself, George Washington University cleared its infection with a pricey therapeutic, the Mayo Clinic's infection rebounded, and Rutgers University faces an unusually virulent strain that could spread far and wide. A federal judge gave final approval to the $5.4 million class-action settlement submitted by GWU students and the private university blocks from the White House, in a tuition-refund lawsuit...

Liberals control the legal profession, from the law schools and litigious nonprofits to the bar associations and judges (including many Republican appointees). Judicial supremacy, implemented through “universal injunctions,” allows any liberal legal group to tap one of 670 district judges in 94 district courts to decide on a broad range of public policies, which the political elite then treat as “law.” The good news: Evidence seems to suggest that at least three Supreme Court justices intend to end this irrational practice. We might only have three justices on our side, but governors should still firmly reject overreaching judges who believe...

VIDEOLook at the CRAZY EYES of Colorado Secretary Of State Jena Griswold as she reacts to the Supreme Court knocking down her crackpot idea by a UNANIMOUS vote for keeping President Trump off her state's ballot. If her CRAZY EYES look familiar it is because they are the same CRAZY EYES we have seen on other extreme fanatics. And if CRAZY EYES Griswold is this fanatic, you can expect her to do everything in her power to "fortify" the election this year in Colorado. Legal or NOT.