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US Supreme Court agrees to hear case challenging birthright citizenship

• wonderwonder 11mo ago
  "For nearly 160 years, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution has established the principle that anyone born in the country is a US citizen, with exceptions for children born to diplomats and foreign military forces." I was actually unaware of this. That does seem to be a wedge to maybe support the issue. I'm not arguing one way or another for or against, just an interesting opening I had not seen before.
  • commandlinefan 11mo ago
    It's tricky - the 14th amendment was passed following reconstruction as a way of ensuring that freed slaves couldn't be denied citizenship. Much later, the Wong Kim Ark case argued that it should cover the children of immigrants, and the supreme court agreed. Quite a while after that, the Wong Kim Ark decision was interpreted to include children of non-citizens as well, and _that's_ what's never been tested in court until now.
    • wonderwonder 11mo ago
      Haven't heard of this either, obviously not a topic I am up to date on. I'll look into it, appreciate the pointer.
    • josefritzishere 11mo ago
      It should not be tricky. The role of the supreme court is to enforce and interpret the constitution and federal law. What the constitution says in this case is unambiguous. It would very reductive to re-inturpret the 14th amendment after 150 years to mean something other than what it says.
      • krapp 11mo ago
        > It would very reductive to re-inturpret the 14th amendment after 150 years to mean something other than what it says. They did it with the Second Amendment in DC v. Heller. The Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court decides it means, nothing else, nothing more, nothing less.
        • dctoedt 11mo ago
          "The Constitution means whatever the current majority of Supreme Court decides it means, ...." FTFY
          • wonderwonder 11mo ago
            You may not like it but OP is absolutely right. Whatever the supreme court rules stands. That’s exactly how the current system works unless laws are passed or the constitution is amended. Your response is childish and you should be embarrassed.
            • krapp 11mo ago
              I don't think they're disagreeing with me, just pointing out that the meaning of the Constitution is subject to a majority vote, which only further undermines the premise that any such thing as an unambiguous (much less "objective") interpretation exists because not even the entire Court always agrees with itself.
              • josefritzishere 11mo ago
                Not disagreeing at all, just pointing out how extreme they would have to be to actually undo the 14th Amendment. Modern laws are highly complex and often genuinely challenging to read and understand. The Constitution is very readable even for lay people. Re-inturpreting it to revoke rights requires a willfull misunderstanding by justices.
                • krapp 11mo ago
    • Ancapistani 11mo ago
      > the Wong Kim Ark decision was interpreted to include children of non-citizens as well Non-citizens, yes, but foreign subjects who were compliant with US law at the time. I believe the scope of this decision will be limited to children born on US soil to non-citizens who entered the country illegally.
      • nullocator 11mo ago
        How will this be enforced? Where are your parents papers right now? What about their parents? Seems like an easy way to criminalize and deport literally anyone with zero pretext.
• citizenbyblood 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  • dvh 11mo ago
    Exactly. America for native Americans and white Americans with European ancestry can go back to Europe. Like that?
    • citizenbyblood 11mo ago
      [flagged]
    • commandlinefan 11mo ago
      Lol I'd love to live in Ireland, it's beautiful there, but I don't think they'd let me.
  • add-sub-mul-div 11mo ago
    So obvious that you have to make a throwaway account just to say it?
    • citizenbyblood 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      • slater 11mo ago
        But not with your regular HN account, of course.
        • citizenbyblood 11mo ago
          I don't have a regular one. I would not like to feel attach to anything from this dumpster community
          • 11mo ago
• oldsklgdfth 11mo ago
  The precursor to this case is Trump v. CASA[0], which arose from injunctions blocking the executive order banning birthright citizenship. The case made it to the supreme court on the emergency docket. The court did not address the merits of the case (i.e. is the ban on birthright citizenship constitutional), rather they heard an argument against universal injunctions and the authority of a judge to block executive order. The court judged against universal injunctions. Basically the EO stands. Subsequently, the plaintiffs forced a certified class and sought a class-wide injunction. This case is called Trump v. Barbara. SCOTUS has agreed to hear the case on the question of the constitutionality of a ban on birthright citizenship. [0] https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/trump-v-casa-inc/ https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/trump-v-casa-inc... EDIT: The Trump v. CASA opinion handed a win to the executive to issues orders without universal injunctions blocking the order immediately. My hot take is that this was part of the original strategy. Not sure how the court will land on the current question at hand.
• josefritzishere 11mo ago
  This is madness.
  • Ancapistani 11mo ago
    It's really not. First, _jus soli_ is relatively rare in the world at large. Second, the Supreme Court has never ruled on birthright citizenship; the meaning of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" has not been tested. Regardless of your political views, this is an extremely important area of US law, and for it to be undefined isn't fair to anyone.
    • D13Fd 11mo ago
      Even if "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" has never made it to the Supreme Court, it's not an ambiguous phrase subject to multiple interpretations. The idea that some class of immigrants are outside the jurisdiction of the US even when they are physically in the country is not supportable.
      • atmavatar 11mo ago
        Precisely. The phrase is exclusively intended to handle both foreign and US diplomats. Diplomatically, embassies count as the soil of the country they represent and thus subject to the jurisdiction of said country. As a result, a child born to a foreign diplomat present in the US would not be granted citizenship. Similarly, a US ambassador (to Germany, for example) is treated as still subject to US jurisdiction, and by extension, any children of theirs would automatically become US citizens. A person who entered the US illegally is still subject to US jurisdiction (or else they couldn't be violating US immigration law), so any children they have are citizens. The proper ways to address that are to a) prevent them from entering illegally in the first place, b) fix immigration law so they don't have to enter illegally, and/or c) add a constitutional amendment modifying the 14th amendment to explicitly deny citizenship to children born to parents who are here illegally.
        • Ancapistani 11mo ago
• jmclnx 11mo ago
  We know the current supreme court will end this. But the big question is how will this be enforced ? What happens if the parents became citizens after their children were born. Will the children be deemed non-US ? Also I know many people who's children were born in the US but parents were from Ireland and not US citizens. Either on a tourist visa or work visa or undocumented. Some kids have been here for over 50 years. Will this only be enforced if the child has the "wrong" skin color ? That is what I expect.
  • Ancapistani 11mo ago
    It's extremely uncommon for the court to issue an opinion with such large repercussions. Even if birthright citizenship is overturned (which I find very unlikely), I would expect it to be narrowly defined so as to apply only to children born of parents not present legally in the country - and likely with a specific carveout for those who overstay visas and such, as those people are clearly subject to US jurisdiction by virtue of the application process. The absolute largest change I would expect would be to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents illegally entered into the US and have never had a visa of entry permit of any type whatsoever.
    • oldsklgdfth 11mo ago
      > The absolute largest change I would expect would be to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents illegally entered into the US and have never had a visa of entry permit of any type whatsoever. That's the vibe I get. However, I don't see a definition of jurisdiction in the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" that would make this workable. How do you see this being resolved?
      • Ancapistani 11mo ago
        > How do you see this being resolved? At a much higher level, this court seems to be attempting to slowly and carefully reign in the power of the federal government. I expect that there will be enough of a headline here for the Trump administration to hold it up as a victory, while being so narrowly defined that it will only apply to a relative handful of individuals. The court's interest here is most likely a precedent that will be applicable in subsequent cases. It could conceivably end up establishing a new, weaker form of Chevron deference where ambiguity is interpreted in the light most beneficial to the People.
• cratermoon 11mo ago
  After the first world war Austria-Hungary and Serbia ceased to exist and, along with parts of Russia, became parts of the new countries of Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia along with an enlarged Romania and a number of other smaller countries. The result of this is that many people became stateless or de facto citizens of a country where they were in the minority. The Minority Treaties attempted to ensure these citizens maintained rights in countries of the League of Nations, but this was ill-enforced at best. During the years leading up to World War II, numerous of these new countries, plus France and Germany, began to de-naturalize people of minority (for that country) descent including Germans, Poles, Balkans, Russian, Spaniards and of course Jews. They began to revoke citizenship of both naturalized and native-born people, and attempted to deport them to various places even though many had never lived there and those countries did not want them.
• deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
  • dctoedt 11mo ago
    > a visible wearable on the arm Or pinned to the coat lapel. (Grr ....)
• jfengel 11mo ago
  As far as I can tell, being born here is the only reason that I'm considered a citizen. My parents were also considered citizens for the same reason. But if we go back a few generations, I don't think the paperwork exists to prove that their great-grandparents were citizens. There might be a copy in some Ellis Island archive, but I'd be hard pressed to locate it. So... lacking that documentation, does the recursion unwind? Being descended of not-provably-naturalized-citizens, am I at risk of deportation?
  • Ancapistani 11mo ago
    I have two thoughts about this. First - there's no point in worrying about something before it's clear what will happen. Personally, I find it extremely unlikely that any decision will be so broadly defined as to be applicable to more than a handful of people. Second - I propose that it doesn't matter. I lean toward the Trump administration's positions on probably 2/3 of the issues commonly discussed today, and even from that position I would be incredibly outraged if mass denaturalization were to come to pass. The country would no longer be the America I love at that point, and I would feel very little if any affinity for it. If what you fear comes to pass, I wouldn't see it as something happening to you - I would see it as a clear signal to emigrate as soon as possible, and at pretty much all costs.
    • muwtyhg 11mo ago
      > First - there's no point in worrying about something before it's clear what will happen You don't think it's important to prepare for things that have a non-zero likelihood of occurring? This case has already worked its way to the Supreme Court, it's obvious something is happening with it. > Second - I propose that it doesn't matter. I lean toward the Trump administration's positions on probably 2/3 of the issues commonly discussed today Is the anti-immigrant rhetoric of this admin one of the things you do or not lean towards?
      • Ancapistani 11mo ago
        > You don't think it's important to prepare for things that have a non-zero likelihood of occurring? Of course that's not what I meant. Preparation is not the same as worry. Worry solves nothing; what's needed is a cycle of observation, analysis, preparation, and action. > Is the anti-immigrant rhetoric of this admin one of the things you do or not lean towards? Absolutely. (ETA for clarity: meaning I absolutely disagree with their statements that incite division and feed hate) I truly try to limit my sharing of my own views on HN, because that's not in the spirit of the community and not why I come here. If you're honestly interested in how I see it, I can copy over a post I just made on a right-wing forum on this topic. I assure you, I have no hate in my heart for anyone. What I feel is driven by empathy, what I say is informed by empathy, and what I do is -- to the best of my ability -- a result of careful rational thought.
• jswelker 11mo ago
  I'd actually entertain a ban on birthright citizenship _for all citizens_. Imagine as a thought experiment that everyone in the US had to go through the immigration process to earn a place here. If you are born here, you have a green card for 20 years or so, and if you aren't the kind of desirable person we want in this country, you get a one way ticket somewhere else. We don't need freeloaders! Maybe every 10 years you can reapply if you are not accepted. Imagine how different our education and child rearing processes would be if the stakes were made real. Dystopian? Yes. But that is the dystopia we are already heading towards for many people who would otherwise be future citizens.
  • RajT88 11mo ago
    You may enjoy the book Starship Troopers.
  • eesmith 11mo ago
    Where might this somewhere else be? We already see that the US needed to pay El Salvador to accept its prisoners, and the UK pay Rwanda to take asylum seekers. It's hard to think of a country which will accept people the US considers to be freeloaders, except by taking considerable compensation .. or by threat of military force, which is also expensive. If you want a dystopian future, just kill them.
    • jswelker 11mo ago
      My friend, this is America. We already have so much experience relocating displaced undesirable native peoples into marginal lands where they can cosplay independence and autonomy. Oklahoma is pretty much taken, but I think we can spare Arkansas, Kentucky, and a few others. I know a lot of people from high school for whom this would be a big step up in life actually.
      • eesmith 11mo ago
        So, send them to Coventry, set up a ghetto or Bantustan, or be glad there are a lot of islands as in Brave New World. I misread your "else" in "you get a one way ticket somewhere else" as outside of the US, not partitioning the US. Historically this means the US will still be spending a lot of money on these so-called freeloaders, not only for internal border control (people, smuggling) but also pollution emissions, water flow, and all the other boring crap usually handled by national law and interstate compacts.