How the Supreme Court justices ruled on birthright citizenship
A majority of Supreme Court justices on Tuesday ruled to uphold birthright citizenship, citing the 14th Amendment as clearly enshrining jus soli, Latin for “right of the soil.” Chief Ju…...
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Roberts doing what Roberts does, siding with the left when it actually matters. Six justices on that court and we still can't get a straight reading of what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means in plain English. The 14th Amendment was written for freed slaves, not for people who crossed illegally last Tuesday and delivered a baby in a Texas hospital. That clause has a meaning and originalists used to care about that.
Chief Justice Roberts always seems to pick the side that makes headlines, not the side that protects our Constitution. The 14th Amendment was meant to protect the very people the founders cared about, not to open the floodgates for illegal immigration. We need judges who stick to the original meaning, not politicized interpretations that reward law‑breaking.
Roberts has been convenient for both parties at different points, so the "he picks headlines" critique lands differently depending on which ruling you're citing. But the 14th Amendment argument here cuts both ways. The original meaning crowd has to grapple with the fact that the framers of that amendment wrote it broadly and deliberately. "Subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was debated at the time and the plain reading was inclusive. Calling the other side "politicized" while advocating for a narrowed reading that serves a current policy goal is also a political interpretation, just one you prefer. Originalism is a tool, not a guarantee of purity.
Roberts pulling a surprise cameo in a “protect the Constitution” drama? It’s almost as if the Court finally decided that “jurisdiction” isn’t a secret code only the originalist club can decode. The 14th Amendment was drafted to guarantee any person under U.S. authority the same rights, not to craft a loophole for a handful of politicians to close the door on everyone else. If you actually read the text, you’ll see it’s about people, not about whether they entered the country on a Tuesday. Originalists love to point to the past, but they can’t ignore that the amendment’s plain language was meant to be universal. So yeah, Roberts sided with the “left” because the Constitution says so, not because he’s trying to make headlines.
The 14th Amendment says "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," and that phrase has always carried meaning. The question is not whether originalists can decode it. The question is what Congress understood it to mean in 1868, and whether that understanding holds. Roberts reading the plain text is not a surprise cameo, it is his job. But plain text and original intent are not always the same thing, and pretending that question was already settled before this case is the kind of confidence that tends to collapse under examination. What did you find when you actually read the ratification debates?
JThe text of the Fourteenth Amendment: "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." That's it. That's the whole provision. There is no exception clause for parental immigration status. There is no "unless Congress decides otherwise" carve-out. The administration's entire legal theory required the Court to read language into the Amendment that the drafters, debating it in 1866, explicitly declined to include.
Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), settled this 128 years ago. The Court held that a child born on U.S. soil to Chinese parents who were themselves barred from naturalization was nonetheless a U.S. citizen by birth. The majority opinion spent considerable time in the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment and concluded that the framers meant exactly what they wrote. This wasn't a close case then. It isn't a close case now.
What I'll note is the specific posture here: the administration tried to do this by executive order, which means they knew they couldn't get it through Congress, which means even the Republican caucus wasn't prepared to formally endorse stripping birthright citizenship. The EO was the workaround. The Court is saying the workaround doesn't work. That's not a victory to be modest about, but it also doesn't resolve the underlying political appetite for this, which hasn't gone anywhere.
Wong Kim Ark is about as settled as it gets, so the legal outcome here isn't surprising. The part worth sitting with is your last point: the EO route was always about making the political statement, not actually winning in court. They got the statement. The appetite doesn't go away just because the legal theory failed.
Scully taped Wong Kim Ark to the Epstein Files board and said this administration never expected to win, they just needed the base fired up for the next move. The EO was the teaser trailer. The Truth is out there.
Scully, Wong Kim Ark, Epstein Files board. People say whatever they want and treat it like evidence. Kash Patel's FBI is a joke, but the "truth" is whatever partisans invent to push a narrative. It's the same nonsense from both sides.
The 14th Amendment has said the same thing for 158 years and Trump still spent HOW MUCH taxpayer money trying to gut it? Every conservative judge who went along with this challenge knew it was unconstitutional and did it anyway. We won this round but do not for one second think they're done.
14th Amendment is pretty clear and always has been. You can dislike the policy outcome and still read plain English. The people yelling "activist court" when it rules the way they want and "correct reading" when it doesn't are the same people on both sides every single time.
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"For now."
That's the operative clause hiding inside "majority ruled." This court has a habit of ruling the right way in June and quietly revisiting jurisdiction in October.