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After SCOTUS ruling, we can’t be taken as fools when it comes to the definition of citizenship eligibility

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“This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners,” declared Sen. Jacob Howard (R-Mich.) back in 1866. Howard was discussing the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause, which states that “all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.”

Howard knew what he was talking about. He wrote the clause. He based it on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which defined “citizens” as “all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power.” By definition, that excludes citizens of any other country.

After decades of hedging against Howard, the Supreme Court definitively threw his intent out the window on Tuesday. The bench ruled in a 5-4 decision that the clause grants unrestricted citizenship to virtually all individuals born on American soil. Practically speaking, the only newborns excepted are those of foreign diplomats. 

The ruling voids President Trump’s executive order barring citizenship to children born of parents present illegally or on a lawful but temporary basis. That includes as many as 250,000 babies a year. 

Conceived in the aftermath of the Civil War, the citizenship clause was written to ensure that freed slaves and their children counted as citizens. It was not........

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