{"id":6833,"date":"2026-07-15T17:21:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=6833"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:21:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:21:57","slug":"the-divided-supreme-courts-birthright-citizenship-decision-exposes-sharp-rifts-among-justices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=6833","title":{"rendered":"The divided Supreme Court&#8217;s birthright citizenship decision exposes sharp rifts among justices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB  \">WASHINGTON &#8212; <\/span>The U.S. <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-immigration-c73cf0c70bb550ebf0a55fafddbd935c\">Supreme Court&#8217;s divided ruling<\/a> that children born in the U.S. are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment \u2014 even if their parents are in the country unlawfully or only temporarily \u2014 exposed deep fissures in the justices&#8217; views on the issue and toward each other. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The court&#8217;s two Black justices notably had very different views on <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-immigration-c73cf0c70bb550ebf0a55fafddbd935c\">U.S. citizenship<\/a> in the context of Reconstruction after the Civil War.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Tuesday&#8217;s decision rejects an order <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/donald-trump\">President Donald Trump<\/a> issued at the start of his second term, declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The majority, composed of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, determined that birth on U.S. soil plus being subject to U.S. law is enough for citizenship. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Several dissenters, including Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, say birth alone is not enough \u2014 the child&#8217;s parents must have a deeper political allegiance or relationship to the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Jackson\u2019s direct disagreement with Thomas&#8217; dissent highlights a major rift between the legal minds. Here are the justices in their own words: <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Much of Roberts&#8217; opinion was a history lesson on English common law, in which he concluded that birthright citizenship has always depended primarily on birthplace \u2014 not on parents\u2019 immigration status or domicile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cCitizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights \u2014 to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to \u2018every free-born person in this land,\u2019\u201d Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, citing congressional debate over the amendment, \u201cWe keep that promise today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWe break no new ground today,\u201d Roberts said on the bench as he read the court&#8217;s majority opinion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Thomas, who wrote the main dissent, disagreed with the majority&#8217;s opinion and argued that American-born children are not automatically American citizens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The basis of his argument, among other things, is that the court ignored evidence from Reconstruction debates that suggested citizenship depended on a deeper relationship to the country. After <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/5e6d77054bef489688519bd400714b65\">the Civil War,<\/a> the U.S. underwent a series of political and constitutional battles over how to define the civil rights and citizenship status of formerly enslaved Black Americans. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cThe Citizenship Clause was enacted for people who were born in this country and called it home. It was enacted for freed slaves such as Dred Scott, who had \u2018a domicile\u2019 here and therefore were entitled to sue as citizens,\u201d Thomas wrote in his dissent, concluding that Reconstruction was a targeted remedy for freed slaves to restore citizenship to a wrongfully excluded group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIn my view, the Citizenship Order is not facially unconstitutional,\u201d Thomas wrote, referring to Trump&#8217;s executive order. \u201cThe Order is consistent with the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause, at least insofar as it applies to children born to parents, here lawfully or unlawfully, who are not domiciled in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed with the opinion in full, but wrote to respond to Clarence Thomas&#8217; dissent, arguing that Thomas fundamentally misunderstands what the Reconstruction Amendments \u2014 the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments \u2014 are trying to accomplish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cDespite his longstanding endorsement of a \u2018colorblind\u2019 Constitution, Justice Thomas, now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure, relating only to \u2018freed slaves such as Dred Scott\u2019 \u2014 but that narrow vision of the Fourteenth Amendment bears little relationship to the history of its ratification.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cThe Reconstruction Amendments were an anti-caste, anti-subordination reset for the Nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">\u201cThe Court\u2019s conception of a color-blind Constitution and the Government\u2019s (and principal dissent\u2019s) cramped, group-specific reading of the Citizenship Clause are two sides of the same coin, stemming from a basic misunderstanding of the relevant history.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; The U.S. Supreme Court&#8217;s divided ruling that children born in the U.S. are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment \u2014 even if their parents are in the country unlawfully or only temporarily \u2014 exposed deep fissures in the justices&#8217; views on the issue and toward each other. The court&#8217;s two Black justices notably had&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/86a3ed24-6269-4c92-a73a-2aaead4d65b1\/wirestory_6541b7ffa208162f482fd33dfd1798b6_16x9.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}