For more than 150 years, a single sentence in the Constitution has provided a clear and powerful answer to a fundamental question: Who is an American? Now, the President of the United States has formally asked the Supreme Court to adopt a new, radically different interpretation of that sentence.
This is not a simple policy dispute about immigration; it is a constitutional showdown that will determine the very definition of American citizenship for generations to come.
The President’s Challenge
The Trump administration is pressing the Supreme Court to revive its executive order that seeks to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to non-citizen parents. In a petition to the high court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the long-standing interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is a “mistake” with “destructive consequences.”
The administration’s goal is to narrow the definition of citizenship to only include children born to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. This would be a seismic shift in American law, creating for the first time a class of people born on U.S. soil who are not considered citizens.
The Battle Over Five Words
This entire legal war hinges on the interpretation of five words in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which grants citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” For over a century, the courts have interpreted this phrase to mean subject to U.S. laws – a condition that applies to virtually everyone physically present in the country, with narrow exceptions for diplomats and invading armies.
The Trump administration, reviving a long-dormant dissenting view, argues that “jurisdiction” requires complete political allegiance to the United States, something they claim the child of a non-citizen cannot possess. It is a legal argument that seeks to transform the clause from a broad grant of citizenship into a narrow and exclusionary one.
The Ghost of Wong Kim Ark
This is a direct assault on the 1898 Supreme Court precedent United States v. Wong Kim Ark. In that case, the Court ruled that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents – who themselves were barred from ever becoming citizens under the discriminatory laws of the era – was unquestionably a U.S. citizen.
The Wong Kim Ark decision cemented the principle of jus soli (“right of the soil”) as the law of the land. The administration is now asking the current Supreme Court to effectively overturn this 127-year-old precedent and undo one of the most significant civil rights rulings of the 19th century.
The Unseen Shadow of the Civil War
To understand the stakes is to understand the history. The Fourteenth Amendment was not an immigration policy; it was a corrective to America’s original sin. Passed in 1868 during Reconstruction, its primary purpose was to overturn the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, which had denied citizenship to Black Americans. The Citizenship Clause was written to be broad and absolute to ensure that all persons born on U.S. soil, especially the children of the formerly enslaved, would never again be denied their birthright.
Opponents of the President’s order argue that to narrow the clause is to betray its foundational purpose.
“This executive order directly opposes our Constitution, values, and history, and it would create a permanent, multigenerational subclass.”
– Devon Chaffee, Executive Director, ACLU-NH
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to take up this monumental case. In doing so, it will have to confront not only a century of precedent but the very legacy of the Civil War and the inclusive, foundational vision of citizenship that was purchased with blood.