Birthright Citizenship?

 

Drumph/Trump's ancestors are from Germany

EXCERPT:

The history of birthright citizenship in the US

That exception has traditionally been interpreted to exclude foreign diplomats’ children, foreign enemies in hostile occupation or Native American children subject to tribal laws. But some say the children of noncitizens fall under that umbrella, too.

The 14th Amendment reads: “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.”  It didn’t, however, always apply to everyone.  It wasn’t until 1924, for example, that Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S.

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-decision/

Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship would overturn more than a century of precedent

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  By GRAHAM LEE BREWER and JANIE HAR Associated Press
• Jan 30, 2025

President Donald Trump has said since his first administration that he wants to end birthright citizenship, a constitutional right for everyone born in the United States.

This week he issued an executive order that would eliminate it, upending more than a century of precedent.  On Thursday, however, a federal judge temporarily blocked it after 22 states quickly mounted a legal challenge.

Over the years the right to citizenship has been won by various oppressed or marginalized groups after hard-fought legal battles.  

Here’s a look at how birthright citizenship has applied to some of those cases and how the Justice Department is using them today to defend Trump’s order.

Citizenship for Native Americans

Native Americans were given U.S. citizenship in 1924.  The Justice Department has cited their status as a legal analogy to justify Trump’s executive order in court.

Arguing that “birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship, the person must also be ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States.” It raised a case from 1884 that found members of Indian tribes “are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are not constitutionally entitled to Citizenship,” the department said.

Many scholars take a dim view of the validity of that analogy.

It’s not a good or even new legal argument, said Gerald L. Neuman, a professor of international, foreign and comparative law at Harvard Law School. “But it’s got a bigger political movement behind it, and it’s embedded in a degree of openly expressed xenophobia and prejudice.”

Some say the legal analogy to the citizens of tribal nations plays directly into that.

“It’s not a valid comparison,” said Leo Chavez, a professor and author at the University of California, Irvine, who studies international migration. “It’s using the heat of race to make a political argument rather than a legal argument.”

“They’re digging into old, archaic Indian law cases, finding the most racist points they can in order to win,” said Matthew Fletcher, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. “There’s nothing sacred in the Department of Justice. They’ll do anything they can to win.”