Of Course: The Five Liberal Supreme Court Justices (Including Liberals Roberts and Coney-Barrett) Decide the 14th Amendment Can Go Blow, Anyone Born in the US is a US Citizen

The Five Horsemen make a mockery of the law yet again.

That's the full awful left-wing holding.

The liberals make two extraordinary claims. First, they claim that the 14th Amendment is based on the ancient British rule of the king being sovereign over anyone born in his lands. But even there they're forced to admit that that rule did not confer full jurisdiction over the person -- and it's silly to claim the one is based on the other anyway, as Thomas points out in his dissent.

The other absurd horse they ride is that the Dred Scott decision was bad bad terra-bad and therefore, they seem to believe, they are required to create a fake rule that is 1000% the opposite of that.

But that was taken care of -- the 14th Amendment was adopted precisely to repudicate Dred Scott and declare that former slaves born in the US, who also are not subject to any other jurisdiction but the US -- former slaves have no homeland or nation they owe primary allegiance to -- are US citizens.

So why even discuss Dred Scott? It was specifically repudiated and has nothing to say about the Amendment adopted specifically to repudiate it.

But they spend a huge chunk of their opinion discussing it because their own arguments are weak so they have to set up a straw-man -- if we don't adopt this fake rule and ignore the "subject to the jurisdiction" qualifier of the 14th Amendment, we're essentially re-implementing Dred Scott and that's just terrible, right?

JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE GORSUCH joins, dissenting.

This Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How.
393 (1857), would have permanently denied citizenship to
blacks as "a subordinate and inferior class." Id., at 404--
405. After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Congress over-
ruled Dred Scott, first with the Civil Rights Act of 1866,
then with the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment. Both the Civil Rights Act and the Citizenship Clause
guaranteed citizenship to persons born and domiciled in the
United States regardless of their race. Neither guaranteed
citizenship to persons who were not domiciled in the United
States.

Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were
Americans. They had no other homeland, owed no alle-
giance 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" along-
side every other citizen. 2 Life and Writings of Frederick
Douglass 256, 266 (P. Foner ed. 1950) (Douglass). The Cit-
izenship Clause thus guaranteed them the "dignity and
glory of American citizenship," so as to ensure that they
would never be treated as second class under the law.
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 555 (1896) (Harlan, J.,
dissenting).

The same could not be said for the children of foreign tem-
porary visitors. Foreign temporary visitors were attached
to their home country, lacked similar bonds to this country,
and would not be called upon in time of war. Americans,
consistent with their settler ethos, believed that citizens
were the people who called a place home. Accordingly, dom-
icile--a person's legal home--played a key role in both state
and national citizenship in America. A person was a "citi-
zen" of the state where he had his "domicil." Barber v. Bar-
ber, 21 How. 582, 599 (1859). When foreigners temporarily
visited, their "national character" was unchanged. The Ve-
nus, 8 Cranch 253, 278--279 (1814). Such visitors were
"strangers," not "subjects." Id., at 278. A person born here
but domiciled in a foreign land was therefore considered "as
much a stranger to the country as his father." 1 H. St.
George Tucker, Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia 57
(1836) (Tucker).

That is why, when Dred Scott went to court, he argued
that to be a "citizen," "it is only necessary that he should
have acquired a domicil." Brief for Plaintiff in Dred Scott v.
Sandford, D. T. 1855, No. 7, p. 6. (Brief for Dred Scott). Af-
ter this Court held that Scott was not a citizen because he
was black, Republicans in Congress, such as Representa-
tive John Bingham, stated that a person was a citizen if he
was "born and domiciled" in the United States. Cong.
Globe, 35th Cong., 2d Sess., 983 (1859). Scott was a citizen,
in their view, because he was born to Americans, not to
"temporary sojourners." Cong. Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess.,
210 (1858) (statement of Rep. Bliss). As Frederick Douglass
had put it, the freedmen sought citizenship "not as aliens
nor as exiles," but as "Americans." 2 Douglass 255 (empha-
sis added).

Congress implemented the principle that citizenship fol-
lows birth and domicile in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and
then in the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment. The Civil Rights Act guaranteed citizenship to per-
sons who were both "born in the United States" and, as rel-
evant here, "not subject to any foreign power." Act of Apr.
9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27. The phrase "not subject to any foreign
power" excluded from citizenship children of foreign tempo-
rary visitors, who were subject to the power of their home
nation. See, e.g., The Pizarro, 2 Wheat. 227, 246 (1817); The
Venus, 8 Cranch, at 278--279. The Citizenship Clause,
which the same Congress passed shortly after the Civil
Rights Act, was understood to have the same meaning. It
guaranteed citizenship to persons who were both "born . . .
in the United States" and "subject to the jurisdiction
thereof." Amdt. 14, §1.

A person was subject to the jurisdiction of the govern-
ment of his domicile. "Domicil" was "the foundation of ju-
risdiction over persons." 1 T. Twiss, The Law of Nations
239 (1861) (Twiss). The government of a person's domicile
had broad power over that person, including with respect to
his personal affairs, his conduct abroad, his personal taxes,
and the mutual duties of protection and allegiance. So, as
the Senator who introduced the Citizenship Clause ex-
plained, "the word 'jurisdiction,' as here employed, ought to
be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction
. . . the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to
every citizen of the United States now." Cong. Globe, 39th
Cong., 1st Sess., 2895 (1866) (statement of Sen. Howard).
After all, Congress "would have no right to make citizens"
of "persons temporarily resident." Id., at 572 (statement of
Sen. Trumbull).

The Citizenship Clause was consistently interpreted not
to apply to the children of foreign temporary visitors, who
were by definition not domiciled in the United States. Re-
gardless of administration or party, the Federal Govern-
ment for decades after ratification regularly denied claims
to citizenship by children who were born in the United
States but not domiciled here. When a child was "born" in
the United States to parents "domiciled" abroad, he was
"not, therefore, under the statute and the Constitution a
citizen of the United States by birth." Letter from Sec. of
State T. Bayard to B. Winchester (Nov. 28, 1885), in 2 F.
Wharton, Digest of International Law 399--400 (2d ed.
1887) (Wharton Digest). Scholars agreed: A child "born
within the territory of the United States, of alien parents"
was not a citizen unless his parents were "permanently
domiciled within the United States." W. Robinson, Notes
on Elementary Law 70 (1875). This Court agreed: The Cit-
izenship Clause "exclude[d] from its operation children of
. . . citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the
United States." Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 73
(1873). And, Congress agreed: The Citizenship Clause did
not extend to a child born here but "subject to any foreign
power." See Enforcement Act of 1870, §18, 16 Stat. 144
(reenacting Act of Apr. 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27). As Justice
Harlan would write in his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163
U. S. 537, the Citizenship Clause "gave citizenship to all
born or naturalized in the United States and residing here."
Id., at 563 (emphasis added).

The Court offers a different account. American citizen-
ship, the Court says, was based on a medieval English "feu-
dal" principle, according to which each person "owed per-
sonal service to the lord of the soil" as his "master"--a
perpetual servitude that was "born with the child and only
ended in the grave." 2 Cong. Rec. 3282 (1874) (statement of
Rep. Cox). Americans, the Court says, adopted this feudal
principle as a rule of American citizenship "with little fan-
fare." Ante, at 4. Then, according to the Court, the Recon-
struction Congress codified that feudal principle with the
words "not subject to any foreign power" in the Civil Rights
Act and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof " in the Citizen-
ship Clause. Then, the Court says, the Clause's meaning
was definitively settled by dicta in United States v. Wong
Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649 (1898).

With due respect, the Court's account is not historically
accurate. The Court says that the Citizenship Clause in-
corporated the English feudal principle that subjects owed
lifetime servitude to the King who owned the soil on which
they were born, but Americans--unsurprisingly--rejected
this feudal principle. The Court's theory of American citi-
zenship is based on the opinion of a New York assistant vice
chancellor in an inheritance dispute called Lynch v. Clarke,
1 Sand. Ch. 583, 584--585 (N. Y. Ch. 1844). Ante, at 6--10.
But, the assistant vice chancellor's reasoning, whatever it
was worth, was not even followed in New York by the time
of the Citizenship Clause. Finally, the Court reasons that
dicta in Wong Kim Ark settled the meaning of the Clause.
But, Wong Kim Ark itself emphasized that its holding was
limited to persons domiciled in the United States. And,
scholars and government officials continued to agree after
Wong Kim Ark that the Citizenship Clause did not extend
to the children of foreign temporary visitors. The rule re-
mained what it always was: A child born on American soil
of "a stranger or traveler passing through the country, or
temporarily residing here," was "not a citizen." H. Black,
Handbook of American Constitutional Law 634 (3d ed.
1910).

The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding
facially unconstitutional the President's Order excluding
from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors
and illegal aliens. In doing so, the Court adds to the sad
history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed
and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks
but has instead been repurposed for political projects that
the Reconstruction Congress did not support. Because
many potential applications of the President's Order are
consistent with the original public meaning of the Citizen-
ship Clause, I respectfully dissent.

And Alito's dissent:

JUSTICE ALITO, dissenting.

This is one of the most important decisions in the history
of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a
serious mistake. As interpreted by the Court today, the
Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on virtually
everyone who happens to be born in this country, including
the children of "birth tourists," women who come here solely
for the purpose of giving birth to a child and then promptly
return home. Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth
Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows
that it does not degrade the concept of United States citi-
zenship in this way. Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment
confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe
allegiance solely to this country.

Respecting this interpretation would not require uproot-
ing the millions of children who were born here to mothers
who entered or remained in this country illegally. Those
children are not responsible for their parents' violation of
our immigration laws, and their plight is the result of a long
period during which a coterie of actors--Executive Branch
officials, States and cities, and a variety of private groups--
sent the message to would-be immigrants that our
immigration laws should not be taken too seriously. This
message, coupled with ineffective or unenthusiastic en-
forcement, spurred massive illegal immigration and the
growth of a large contingent of people who were born here
to mothers unlawfully present in this country. Some mem-
bers of this group have lived here for years, and they have
a strong moral claim to be able to remain in the land where
they grew up.

Congress can and should address their situation. The
Fourteenth Amendment dictates who must be a citizen, but
it does not address who may be a citizen by Act of Congress.
Congress has conferred citizenship on many people who are
not made citizens by the Fourteenth Amendment, including
children born abroad to American citizen parents. These
people and the millions of immigrants who have been natu-
ralized are no less American than those who are fortunate
enough to be born here.

For these reasons, the original meaning of the Fourteenth
Amendment does not require inhumane results, and we
should not adopt an erroneous interpretation of the Four-
teenth Amendment simply out of fear of the consequences
of "rocking the boat" or as a reaction to current immigration
policy.

Nor should we take the position that our hands are tied
by dicta in a sprawling 19th-century opinion that is, to put
the point gently, very far from a model of careful judicial
craftsmanship. Too much is at stake.

United States citizenship is precious. Anyone who has
attended a ceremony where citizens are naturalized can see
that message on the faces of those who take the citizenship
oath. Before saddling the Nation with a medieval rule, we
had better be certain the Constitution requires it.
The Court's account of the birthright-citizenship rule in
American law is roughly as follows. After American inde-
pendence, the British rule of birthright subjecthood was
modified in just one way (to take account of Indians who
lived under tribal governance), but otherwise the rule was
transplanted intact to American soil. As modified, the rule
was that a child born in this country is automatically an
American citizen unless the child is born to tribal Indians
or to a diplomat with immunity from legal process. During
the period before the Civil War, the rule's status was firm.
After the war, Congress codified the rule in §1 of the Four-
teenth Amendment. And in United States v. Wong Kim Ark,
169 U. S. 649 (1898), this Court issued a binding precedent
confirming what Congress had done.

Alito makes some strong points about the majority of liberals' insane claim that a rule of the British monarchy deciding who was a subject of the king's tyrannical power should dictate the rule of the American democracy about who is granted the rights and priviliges of citizenship.

Subjecthood and citizenship aren't the same, you know.

Every step of this story is incorrect. The Declaration of
Independence repudiated the foundation on which the Brit-
ish rule was based. See infra, at 5. From 1776 until the eve
of the Civil War, the status of the rule in this country was
unsettled. There is no evidence establishing that the Con-
stitution's references to citizens incorporated the British
rule, infra, at 5--8, and until the eve of the Civil War, there
was little litigation about the meaning of American citizen-
ship, infra, at 9--11. After the war, Congress finally adopted
a constitutional provision, §1 of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment, making certain persons citizens at birth, but that
provision differed substantially from the British rule. It
specified that a person born here is not a citizen unless his
allegiance to the United States is unimpaired by any obli-
gations to a foreign power. Infra, at 11--22. And while
Wong Kim Ark included dicta suggesting that the Four-
teenth Amendment incorporates the British rule, its actual
holding was much narrower, infra, at 22--28, and under
that interpretation, respondents' challenge to Executive
Order No. 14160, Protecting the Meaning and Value of
American Citizenship, fails, infra, at 36--39.

I

A

According to the Court, the Fourteenth Amendment's Cit-
izenship Clause codified the British rule of birthright
subjecthood with only one new exception, which was needed
to accommodate the unique status of American Indians.
That is a curious claim, and it is ironic that the Court
should embrace it only days before we celebrate the 250th
anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, which em-
phatically renounced the foundation on which the British
rule rested.

That rule did not concern "citizenship." There was no
such thing as a "citizen" of England, Scotland, or Ireland.
The inhabitants of the British Isles were the King's "sub-
jects." As Sir Edward Coke explained in Calvin's Case, 7
Co. Rep. 1a, 77 Eng. Rep. 377 (K. B. 1608), they acquired
that status automatically at birth, and they retained it, like
it or not, until they died. Id., at 4b, 77 Eng. Rep., at 382;
see id., at 9b, 77 Eng. Rep., at 388 (even a subject who ab-
jures the realm "oweth the King his ligeance"). This status
arose from a feudal understanding of the origin of govern-
mental authority and the relationship between those who
govern and those who are governed. The King's authority
was understood to come from God. Id., at 12b--13a, 77 Eng.
Rep., at 390--391. As Coke put it, a King ruled by the law
of nature. Ibid. And birth established the bond between
King and subject, id., at 4b, 77 Eng. Rep., at 382, just as
birth establishes the bond between parent and child.
In Calvin's Case, the question was whether a man born
in Scotland was a subject of King James I of England, who
acceded to the thrones of both Scotland and England before
the man's birth. Id., at 2a, 77 Eng. Rep., at 379. In a fa-
mous speech to Parliament, James I forcefully explained his
views about the source of his authority and his relationship
with his subjects. The King, he proclaimed, sits "upon
GOD[']s throne" and is the "father of his people." March 21,
1609 A Speach to the Lords and Commons of the Parlia-
ment at White-Hall, in The Political Works of James I,
p. 307 (C. McIlwain ed. 1918).

Well this sucks.

We need a real conservative justice to at least win most of these 5-4.

Eric Schmitt will introduce a Constitutional amendment to wipe away this stain:

Senator Eric Schmitt @SenEricSchmitt The Supreme Court's birthright citizenship decision is wrong, dangerous, and disastrous for American sovereignty and the American people. If we can't fix it with ordinary legislation, then we must do what the Constitution commands in moments of national crisis: We must amend the Constitution and restore American citizenship. We must again put "We the People" first.

The Supreme Court's decision constitutionalizing unlimited birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens and temporarily present aliens is wrong--and disastrous for our sovereignty and the future of our republic.

The decision exposes America to grave national security risks and threatens to erode the integrity of the core of American self-government: citizenship.

Citizenship is more than paperwork issued by the government. It is more than a bureaucratic label that grants access to government programs.

Citizenship is the covenantal bond between a nation and its people.

In a republic like ours, that bond carries enormous weight. In the United States, sovereignty does not belong to a king or a ruling class. It belongs to the American people themselves.

Citizenship defines the legal recognition of who the American people are.

Citizenship defines the political community that governs the United States.

It defines who exercises the sovereign authority of this republic.

But under the Supreme Court's erroneous interpretation, the Constitution now requires citizenship for anyone who happens to be born on U.S. soil.

Even if their parents entered the country illegally. In other words, even if the American people--the citizenry--have prohibited those parents from entering our territory.

Even if they are here only temporarily as tourists or on student visas.

Even if they have no intention of joining the American nation.

That is a dramatic departure from how serious nations understand citizenship. Under the Supreme Court's decision, citizenship no longer reflects allegiance or loyalty to a country and its laws. It becomes an administrative status to be seized by interlopers.

This ruling is the final alarm bell.

The bond of American citizenship has slowly eroded through a series of Supreme Court opinions, congressional actions and inactions, and circumstances the Framers of our Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment could not have foreseen.

The result is a constitutional order in which the American people are losing control over the most basic question in any republic: who belongs to the political community that governs the nation.

This has been the central fight of my work in this important year for American national identity. I led an amicus brief in this very case. I convened a hearing on birthright citizenship and the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. I have pressed this issue because citizenship is the threshold question of the republic. If we lose control of citizenship, we lose control of self-government itself.

In the wake of an erroneous Supreme Court ruling like this one, Congress has a duty to examine the Constitution's text, the historical record, and the policy consequences.

Congress also has the power to respond.

When the Court mistakenly interprets a statute, Congress can amend the statute through bicameralism and presentment.

But when the Court entrenches its mistake as a constitutional command, the remedy must match the injury. Congress can propose an amendment under Article V, and the states can ratify it. That process is purposefully difficult. It requires two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states.

Here, the Supreme Court issued a constitutional ruling. Ordinary legislation cannot repair the damage. A constitutional amendment is now required.

Accordingly, I will be announcing a forthcoming constitutional amendment to restore the sacred bond between American citizens and their government.

That amendment will restore the original American understanding of citizenship. It will restore the right of the American people to define their own political community. And it will ensure that citizenship once again reflects allegiance, permanence, and membership in the American nation.

This amendment accords with the text, history, and tradition of the Constitution and the American conception of citizenship.

It restores the principle embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the law that formed the basis for the Fourteenth Amendment. As my amicus brief in this case explained, the law contained a citizenship provision establishing that "all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power" would be granted birthright citizenship.

That provision was understood to grant birthright citizenship to children born of parents domiciled in the United States while clearly excluding children born to foreign parents temporarily visiting the United States.

And as my brief recounts, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The original American understanding of citizenship was never a suicide pact. It was never a weapon for illegal entry, temporary presence, demographic conquest, or foreign influence.

Left unaddressed, this Supreme Court decision will destroy the republic. A nation that cannot determine who belongs to its political community will lose control of its sovereignty and its unique character and traditions as new generations of unassimilated foreigners are automatically granted citizenship.

We have seen exactly what this process looks like as foreign communists have essentially taken over New York City politics. We cannot allow this Supreme Court decision to consign the rest of our nation to the same fate.

Today is a sad day in the history of our republic. But America and the Constitution have survived for 250 years because each generation has had patriots who, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, valiantly fought back the existential threats this great nation has faced.

Our generation's existential threat is a hostile takeover through mass migration.

We must--and we will--honor the patriots who came before us by doing our part to ensure we pass on America, the Constitution, and our nation--the real versions, not desiccated husks.

That work begins with restoring the right of the American people to decide who joins the political community that governs the United States and exercises the people's sovereignty.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:10 PM

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