{"id":40110,"date":"2026-06-30T18:36:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=40110"},"modified":"2026-06-30T18:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:45:00","slug":"sie-wollten-kinder-zu-fremden-in-ihrem-geburtsland-machen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/sie-wollten-kinder-zu-fremden-in-ihrem-geburtsland-machen\/","title":{"rendered":"They Wanted to Turn Children Into Strangers in the Country of Their Birth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court of the United States on Tuesday reaffirmed a broad interpretation of birthright citizenship, rejecting the president's order that sought to deny citizenship to children whose parents are in the country unlawfully or only temporarily. The ruling follows the long established interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. It came on the final day of a term that revolved almost entirely around Donald Trump's sweeping claims of presidential power and, in most cases, ruled in his favor. Trump called the decision bad for the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion. He traced American birthright citizenship back to English common law, under which anyone born within the sovereign's dominion was considered a natural-born subject. Anyone born in the United States, the Court held, is a citizen, subject to only a handful of narrow exceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An old shadow returned in the briefs. The Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857 had declared that Black people, whether enslaved or free, were not citizens of the United States. Roberts called that ruling abhorrent, describing it as a departure from a previously accepted understanding that had been met with widespread outrage. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, he wrote, restored that earlier understanding, and lawmakers made unmistakably clear that they intended to repudiate the Dred Scott decision. Across the 194 pages of the majority opinion, the concurrences, and the dissents, the name Dred Scott appears forty-eight times. Yet, Roberts wrote, the government and the principal dissent ultimately argue for a return to its central premise - that for certain people, birth on American soil is not enough to confer citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That principal dissent was written by Clarence Thomas. According to Thomas, the majority misunderstands and misuses the Fourteenth Amendment. The Citizenship Clause and the Reconstruction-era laws enacted after the Civil War, he argued, granted citizenship to those who were born and domiciled in the United States regardless of race. None of those texts, however, guaranteed citizenship to those who were not domiciled in the country. Black Americans, Thomas continued, were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans. They had no other homeland, owed allegiance to no foreign power, and were subject to no other sovereign authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n