What Will Happen to Birthright Citizenship?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Carla Lally, cookbook author and snack enthusiast. Do you have a sweet tooth? Check out Sweets Unwrapped, a podcast from Ferrero and Atlantic Rethink, The Atlantic's creative marketing studio. Together, we're celebrating the traditions that make life sweet. Tune in now.
So you think about today's discourse about birthright citizenship and these, you know, sometimes veiled, sometimes overt assertions that America is a white man's country. You know, the people who wrote the 14th Amendment did not believe that. They insisted that that was wrong and they inscribed the equality of man into the Constitution in a much more sincere way than the original founders.
I'm Adam Harris. This is Radio Atlantic. And this is our first Monday episode of the show. And today, we need to talk about birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court has before it a case that could redefine who gets to be an American. That's not hyperbole.
So really, at the end of the day, then, this is a straight-up constitutional ruling you want from this court, win, lose, or draw.
The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is brief. 28 words. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and the states wherein they reside. For more than 150 years, since the amendment was ratified and adopted in July 1868, the clause has animated a basic idea. If you were born in the United States, then barring very rare circumstances, you are a United States citizen. On President Trump's first day in office in January 2025, he signed an executive order called Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. The order would deny citizenship to babies whose parents did not have legal status in the U.S.
or whose parents are only in the country temporarily. States sued immediately. The 14th Amendment says what it means, and it means what it says. If you're born on American soil, you are an American. Period. Full stop. There is no legitimate legal debate on this question, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said at the time. The Supreme Court, which only takes up about 1% of the thousands of petitions it receives each year, decided to hear the case anyway. They listened to oral arguments this April, and soon they'll decide whether the law is constitutional. Will the justices go against the precedent the court set a century ago? And what does it say that the justices are even considering a challenge to birthright citizenship in the first place?
With me to discuss all of this is my colleague, Adam Serwer, who writes about the courts and politics at The Atlantic. Let's get to questions. Adam, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks so much for having me. Can you set the scene for us? Where did this idea of birthright citizenship in America come from?
So birthright citizenship is a centuries-old principle in Anglo-American law, which is obviously from where the American system is designed. But the specific aim of the 14th Amendment was to make real the promise of the Declaration of Independence... that all men are created equal. And, you know, obviously prior to the Civil War, Roger Taney and the Taney Court decide Dred Scott v. Sanford, where they say that black people can never be citizens of the United States. But this was a longstanding argument. You know, there were people like John Calhoun who said, obviously in the Declaration of Independence, all men did not refer to black men. When I was in middle school, I had a teacher who explained to me that
that all men in the Declaration of Independence meant all white men with property. And that is a very narrow interpretation, but in effect, that's how it worked in the beginning. But the author of the 14th Amendment, or one of the authors of the 14th Amendment, John Bingham, he said, the purpose of this is to get rid of the horrid blasphemy that America is a white man's country. So you think about today's discourse about birthright citizenship and these, you know, sometimes veiled, sometimes overt assertions that America is a white man's country.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–5:17
2
What case is before the Supreme Court that could redefine birthright citizenship?
5:17–7:25
3
How does the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause read and what has it meant historically?
7:25–10:44
4
When and why did President Trump issue an order limiting birthright citizenship?
10:44–19:17
5
Where did the idea of birthright citizenship originate and what was Reconstruction’s intent?
19:17–19:43