Carrie Johnson

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1,251 appearances 127 recordings 4 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard 4 Sep

Carrie Johnson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 108 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 20.

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The NPR Politics Podcast · Should all babies born in the United States be citizens? · 31 Mar 2026 podcast

And remember, the Supreme Court actually heard something related to birthright citizenship last year.

In that case, the court did not cover the merits, the substance of the issue.

Instead, it issued a ruling about universal injunctions.

And so this is kind of the court's second crack at the issue.

And now this birthright issue is fundamental to the case.

A senior Justice Department official this week basically said that the 14th Amendment was designed in the era after the Civil War.

And very clearly the intent of that amendment was to ensure that the children of newly freed slaves were citizens of the U.S.

But DOJ also argues that there's this concept of allegiance, that people are here only temporarily.

People who are here on work visas or student visas or people who come here as tourists and maybe overstay and have children, that they don't have the same kind of allegiance to the U.S.,

That's needed to become a citizen.

And so I expected the Solicitor General John Sauer to raise that point of loyalty or allegiance in arguments tomorrow when he has his crack at it.

Interestingly enough, I've been talking with some legal scholars about how this argument might go tomorrow.

And it's important to note here that we're not just relying on the 14th Amendment, but that Congress in 1940 and 1952 passed federal immigration laws that use the same language as the 14th Amendment does about subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

And they think that depending on how the conservative justices kind of congeal around these arguments, that they may decide not to touch the constitutional question and resolve this case on those federal statutes alone.

That means that the constitutional question is open for another day and perhaps another Congress to address in some way.

Threading the needle, but also deciding a smaller question rather than an enormous question.

There have been a lot of cases.

The one that the challengers to the executive order point to is from 1898.

It involves a man born in California to Chinese-born parents.

He traveled to China to see his parents.

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