What's going on with birthright citizenship?
Daily Digest 7/1/26
What is citizenship?
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump Administration, maintaining that the 14th Amendment requires every person born on our soil has American citizenship. Others, including Theo Wold, Attorney General Raúl Labrador, and Justice Clarence Thomas disagree:
Rewind to 1868. The Civil War is over, and lawmakers face the difficult task of not only reintegrating the defeated Southern states but also figuring out what to do with the roughly four million former slaves who inhabited them. Congress had built on Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation by passing the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, but now it needed to ensure that those freed slaves could enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other American citizen. Lawmakers feared that the Southern states might eventually pass laws restricting the rights of former slaves, and their solution was the 14th Amendment.
The 14th is one of the longest and most complex amendments to the Constitution, as it was trying to accomplish many things at once. In the more than 150 years since its ratification, it has become something of a skeleton key to the Constitution, having been used to justify everything from affirmative action to abortion. For our purposes today, we can focus on the very first sentence of the amendment:
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.
Many very intelligent people have debated the precise meaning of that sentence, particularly the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Chief Justice Roberts believes it means that anyone born on American soil is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, while Justice Thomas disagrees. His dissent begins by attempting to understand the original purpose of the 14th Amendment, rather than using its words to support a more modern interpretation:
Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans. They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority. They ‘fought and bled in the same battles,’ ‘gained and gloried in the same victories,’ and were ‘liable to be called upon to defend [America] in time of war’ alongside every other citizen.
As always, be sure to read the entire article. I examine the concept and history of citizenship, what it means, the rights it grants, and the responsibilities it confers.
How to stay healthy
I talk a lot on this platform about taking a long-term view. Participating in politics is not about short-term gain, but about maintaining liberty and prosperity for generations to come. Yet liberty and prosperity are hollow if we aren’t healthy enough to enjoy them. That’s why I am happy to publish Savanna DeHay’s monthly health and nutrition column:
In the name of health, sometimes we bite off more than we can chew. We hyperfocus on “perfection” or try so many different things at once, only to get discouraged and burnt out. But true health isn’t about the false idol of perfection; it’s about daily habits that support longevity. Sometimes, the healthiest thing we can do is the opposite of what we think is right.
Press releases
Video of the day
Mark Hemingway joined Auron MacIntyre to break down the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision:
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