Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.
I'm Carrie Johnson.
I cover the Supreme Court and justice. I'm Nina Totenberg, and I cover the Supreme Court. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
And today on the show, a major court case over the future of citizenship in this country. For more than two hours, the Supreme Court discussed if all babies born in the United States, regardless of their parents' status, are automatically granted citizenship. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer began by laying out the thrust of his argument.
Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court, the Citizenship Clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile here. It did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance.
Throughout the arguments, though, justices returned to that concept again and again with skepticism. Justice Neil Gorsuch pressed the matter in exchange with Sauer.
Who's domicile matters? I mean, it's not the child, obviously. It's the parents you'd have us focus on. And, you know, what if, is it the husband? Is it the wife? What if they're unmarried? Who's domicile?
Well, in the executive order, it draws a distinction between the mother and the father. That's really the mother's domicile. I think that would matter.
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Chapter 2: What arguments were presented regarding birthright citizenship?
Hi to you all.
Hi there.
Hey. So let's start with the main takeaways. Nina, let's start with you.
Well, you know, with the President of the United States, for the first time ever, as far as we know, in the courtroom and sitting in the audience, I thought the court actually went out of its way to not beat the crap out of any of the counsel and to ask very probing questions without completely tipping their hands. At the same time, you heard this constant refrain of,
This is pretty clearly what the Constitution says. I know it has problems today, policy problems, but it is what the Constitution says, and that is sort of the way the court Because this is a very originalist court, it doesn't think it's a living constitution. And in the same way, it believes, for example, that there are quite severe restrictions on what kinds of regulations there can be.
of firearms, of guns. And that's the second amendment to the Constitution, but it's also an amendment to the Constitution, much like the 14th Amendment was an amendment to the Constitution.
Tell me a little bit more. One of the most unprecedented aspects of these arguments is the fact that the president was actually there. Can you tell me a little bit more about his reaction throughout all of this or how that impacted things?
Well, I have to tell you in truth that sitting in the press section, I don't think any of us except maybe one or two people on the far end could see the president at all. And the White House had imposed a new restriction on how we cover the court, which is they told us to sit down before the court started, the proceeding started. The guards told us to sit down.
And I very clearly said, you know, this is our job is to look and see what's going on in this courtroom. at least before the proceedings began. And they said, well, I'm sorry, this isn't our decision. This is a new rule that the White House imposed on us. So I didn't see anything of the precedent. But part of that is, of course, also that I'm short.
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Chapter 3: How did the justices respond to the government's position?
All right. Let's take a quick break and more on all of this in just a moment. And we're back. I feel like it's really hard to grasp how exactly the public feels about something that feels so abstract. I mean, this came up during the hearing, Carrie, in terms of when you actually dig down, if this thing were overturned, people would feel it in ways that might even be hard to grasp at this point.
Justice Katandre Brown Jackson really put this very boldly. She asked what would happen if there were a dispute about the nationality or citizenship of a new baby. She asked the Solicitor General, are we going to give depositions to pregnant moms? And what if the administration or somebody in the hospital concludes that this baby is not a citizen? How do the parents appeal that?
And the solicitor general basically said after the fact there would be some kind of appeal process. But the import of her question was, how are new parents who have their hands more than full going to be in a position to appeal some kind of determination made by some authority agency?
And, you know, one of the main issues here is how workable it would be if this Supreme Court decides to overturn something that's been basically common understanding for over 150 years. Understanding in how people have behaved toward new parents and infants. Understanding in the precedent of the law. Understanding in the 14th Amendment itself.
And understanding in a very key 1898 Supreme Court case that got mentioned many times, Juan Kim Arc.
And, you know, it's interesting because Justice Kavanaugh, in the previous case where birthright citizenship was a tangential... issue that the court didn't get to.
But he did discuss it with Sauer a year ago and said to Sauer, how will we know that a baby in one state or in one hospital or in one village is deserving of birthright citizenship and someplace else they're not deserving of birthright citizenship? How will we know if their parents are legally in the country? How will we know if they're domiciled?
How will we know if they believe themselves to be legally in the country, even if you don't think they're legally in the country? And John Sauer, the Solicitor General, said in response to that last year, he said, well, we'd have to, you know, there are people would have to figure that out after the fact. Which is a very unsatisfactory answer actually.
I thought this idea of legally domiciled was really at the key of this entire argument. And if you were to keyword how many times the word domicile got used, there would be many, right? And I think that this is an interesting point because – What does it mean to be legally domiciled, right? Like what does it mean – it's not necessarily citizenship or bloodline, right?
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