The Supreme Court’s June 27 Trump v. CASA et al. decision about birthright citizenship turned on a legal technicality: Could one federal district judge in one court in one state block a presidential policy for the entire country?  To that question, the Court said “no.”  On the merits of whether Trump’s effort to dial back what “birthright citizenship” means more broadly, the Court left that question for another day.

The predictable outpouring of opposition followed in social media.  One post struck me: “Doesn’t the end of birthright citizenship mean the end of citizenship itself?”

Treating that question as real rather than rhetorical, my answer is no.

Most countries in the world do not confer citizenship by birth.  They and their citizenship seem to have survived just fine. 

There are two ways most countries confer citizenship: jus soli and jus sanguinis, “the law of soil” and “the law of blood.” 

Jus soli means being born on the “soil” or territory of a jurisdiction makes one its citizen.  For shorthand purposes, that is what American “birthright” citizenship has been treated to mean: Be born in the United States and you’re a citizen, even if you just happened to come into the world during a winter storm flight layover in Boston, never having had nor ever again intending any connection to the United States.  I say “shorthand” because the 14th........

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