The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case that could redefine one of the most consequential questions in American law: Who is entitled to citizenship under the 14th Amendment?

The focus, predictably, has been on constitutional interpretation — what the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means, how it has been applied historically, and whether it extends to the children of those unlawfully present in the United States.

Those are important questions. But they are not the only ones — and arguably not even the most important.

Because the deeper issue exposed by this case is not merely what the Constitution permits. It is who gets to decide. By leaving this question first to the executive order and then to the majority of the Court, this case exposes what Congress has failed to do.

For decades, Congress has abdicated its responsibility to define and regulate the contours of citizenship in a manner consistent with both constitutional text and national sovereignty. Instead of legislating clearly and deliberately, it has allowed ambiguity to fester — leaving the courts to resolve disputes that are fundamentally legislative in nature.

That is not how our system is supposed to work.

The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment was never intended to function as a blank check. Its central purpose, in the wake of the Civil War, was to guarantee citizenship to formerly........

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