SCOTUS Sadly Affirms Birthright Citizenship

"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," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his dissent to the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to insert birthright citizenship into Americans' Constitution.

He continued in plain language to show how the decision endorses birth tourism, which would automatically grant full citizenship to foreign adults who have never lived a full day in the United States:

The Court’s interpretation is not only contrary to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, it produces grotesque results. While foreigners who wish to immigrate lawfully must sometimes wait for many years, a child born here to a birth tourist is automatically a citizen.

"We should not adopt an erroneous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment simply out of fear of the consequences of 'rocking the boat' or as a reaction to current immigration policy," he wrote...

"The Fourteenth Amendment does not include the rule the Court now imposes on the country," Alito wrote, adding, "In my judgment, the Court has made a mistake that will seriously affect the country's future."

Justice Clarence Thomas says the Supreme Court's 5-4 court decision today establishing birthright citizenship as a constitutional right is a modern political project built on a feudal principle rejected by the American Revolution that devalues U.S. citizenship...

Thomas’s dissent [page 62 of Trump v. Barbara], which was co-signed by Justice Neil Gorsuch, explained his view:

The court's decision leaves American citizens with no avenue to guard their citizenship except a formal constitutional amendment enacted via a two-thirds majority of the federal Congress or of the states.

Chief Justice John Roberts begins the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship opinion in Westminster in 1608 with Calvin's Case and the English law of royal subjectship.

I would begin in Philadelphia in 1776.

Between those two places - and those two moments - lies the American Revolution. And the Revolution changed more than who governed America. It changed the very foundation of political membership...

Roberts proves that England followed jus soli. He proves that English subjects acquired allegiance by birth within the king's dominions. He proves that Wong Kim Ark embraced that historical tradition.

What he never quite proves is why the American people, after repudiating monarchy and proclaiming government by consent, should be presumed to have constitutionalized that English doctrine rather than adapting inherited legal language to their own revolutionary understanding of citizenship...

The Declaration of Independence eloquently and definitively answered that question in favor of the doctrine of consent rather than the feudal doctrine of jus soli. In this, its 250th anniversary, it should not have been overlooked.

... This country cannot survive if anyone from anywhere - China, Guatemala, India, etc. - can lock themselves inside by giving birth, securing themselves citizenship and welfare entitlements, and then vote in our corrupted elections. And yes, they're voting. That's not up for debate.

The Supreme Court just affirmed the possibility of a person raised for essentially his whole life in Communist China becoming president of the United States. It’s criminal...

A lot of people on the right are understandably upset about the Supreme Court's decision this week upholding birthplace citizenship under the 14th Amendment. It’s easy to see why. All one has to do is read the scathing dissents by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, which expose the flawed reasoning and intellectual dishonesty of the 5-4 majority - a majority that was clearly searching for a specific policy outcome and justifying it under the color of the Constitution...

The court's decision wouldn't be the catastrophe that it is if we hadn't just lived through a Democrat administration that demonstrated what a dangerous weapon mass illegal immigration can be in the hands of left-wing ideologues who want to remake America...

... granting citizenship to the native-born children of foreign nationals does a lot of the heavy lifting of assimilation. It gives immigrant families a stake in the nation, imposes obligations of service, and invites them to sink deep roots in American soil...

[but ] If we allow millions of people to enter our country illegally every year, and then grant citizenship to their children, after a decade or so we won't be the same country. It will completely transform America. Arguably, it already has...

... no self-governing republic can survive with large pockets of permanently domiciled noncitizens. When you allow people into your country permanently, but do not offer them or their offspring citizenship, what you end up with is what Europe has now: multiple generations of unassimilated communities of foreigners, taking over the country block by block, town by town...^*

By the time it's obvious and undeniable what a profound mistake it was to combine mass immigration with birthplace citizenship, it will be too late. America as a nation and a republic will be finished. We’ll be something else entirely: a Balkanized, polyglot empire peopled not by self-governing citizens, but by subjects.

Calm down about today’s birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara. We were always going to lose. That was expected by anyone who understands how the courts work; what wasn’t expected is that this ruling was such a huge step toward eventual victory. You don’t have to be happy, but you don't have to freak out. We’re winning...

For about 150 years, the common legal understanding of the 14th Amendment has been that it provides that... anyone born in the United States is an American citizen. And the text of the amendment can be read to support that. Now, you don't have to like that, and you don't have to agree with that reading - like most of you, I think the stronger argument is the one against birthright citizenship for children of transients and illegal aliens...

Let's understand how the courts work. They don't like changing things. They revere precedent. It takes a lot to get a new understanding of the Constitution to become the mainstream interpretation...

Yeah, we lost today - barely. And that "barely" part is the good news. This was a 5-4 decision on the constitutional issue. Obviously, the three liberals voted against it because they will always vote the way that they perceive helps leftism...

This is huge, people. It’s enormous...

Here's the reality - we are one seat away from changing birthright citizenship. We win today, but this decision moves us forward. Frankly, I expected this evolving understanding of birthright citizenship - which I view as inevitable in the face of the reality of illegal alien anchor babies and birth tourism - to take a decade or two...

... Even though Trump could not on his own change the application of the 14thAmendment's citizenship clause, Kavanaugh said Congress could.

"If Congress amends [the Nationality Act, a 1940 law that statutorily recognized Supreme Court precedent on birthright citizenship] or otherwise enacts a statute creating new exceptions along the lines of the Executive Order for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country, such a statute, as I see it, would pass constitutional muster," Kavanaugh wrote...

Section 5 of the 14th Amendment explicitly gave Congress the power to resolve the issue through legislation...

What is needed is legislation to define the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction." The phrase itself remains undefined in the Constitution...

Majority Leader John Thune has shown himself unwilling to discard the filibuster for the sake of the election reforms contained in the SAVE America Act. But maybe if the future of the country were on the line with an opportunity to redefine citizenship, Thune would find his courage...