What Will Happen to Birthright Citizenship?

It’s a simple question—one that was answered when Congress passed, and the states ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1868. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” the amendment’s first sentence states. Thirty years later, in 1898, the Supreme Court cemented this principle in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.But last January, on President Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order that would challenge the Court’s precedent—and, it has been argued, the purpose of the amendment. “The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” the president’s order says. It would deny citizenship to babies born to parents who lack legal justification for being in the country—or born to those who are here only temporarily. The order was challenged in court within 24 hours.Now the Supreme Court will decide whether the Constitution means what it says; it will decide whether “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”—save for those who are here under unique circumstances, such as children of foreign dignitaries—are citizens of the union. This week on Radio Atlantic, I’m joined by Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer to explore birthright citizenship and what it means to be an American.The following is a transcript of the episode:Adam Serwer: 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 Fourteenth 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.Adam