In Justice Thomas’ dissent to yesterday’s ruling, he went into that history in some depth. You can look up the text of the ruling. I actually hope to write a post on his dissent, but not today.

He authored a recent book explaining his findings, and a few months ago, someone linked to an archived post of his WSJ on it.

Anyone got a LINK to post? Ah, found it, from March. “Trump is right on birthright citizenship”
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-is-right-on-birthright-citizenship-954ae377

Mike Davis of the Article III Project has had several interviews on this SCOTUS decision.

The single best is 15 minutes, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng9UwRUCqE0

In probably several interviews Davis turns purple with outrage, going so far as to call the two, Justice Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts, “F*****g cowards!”

(Note that the left did the same thing about trans treatments for kids last term. Their activists got way ahead of themselves and brought a case that they were sure to lose. It would have been better (for them) if that had not brought the case at all.)

Sometimes, when pre-Trump Republicans did not do what the most vocal portions of the base wanted, it was not because they were RINO squishes. It was because what the base wanted was dumb and bound to be counter-productive. Kind of like this.

Ruling based on the actual words used, and their precise definition, without considering the intent of Congress’ action with the 14th Amendment seems to me shortsighted and laden with consequence. SCOTUS has in past rulings found mutiple “emanations and penumbras” lurking between words to support their rulings; in a case where the “Es and Ps” would make a quite reasonable difference they are discarded in favor of literalism.

This will have consequences. As neo points out, the answer is, most likely, an amendment to rectify the decision, or perhaps a future reconsideration of the decision based on ancillary information, specifically, action by Congress (which I doubt could, or even should, come prior to 2027 – there is change afoot in the country and it will certainly be reflected in November’s elections).

The adminstration has options, specifically, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) (INA Section 212(f)) which says:

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

Such action by Trump (or, certainly, any Republican President) would instantly produce a myriad of court filings, some of which might…”might”… lead to the SCOTUS reconsideration neo suggests (one of the issues there is the standard SCOTUS cycle – issues today often do not receive cert for several years, and most don’t receive cert at all).

All sorts of things are quickly becoming interesting, many of which not in a good way; Margo Channing’s seatbelt reference may be more prescient today, and it will be needed for much longer than one night.

I don’t know why you would think an originalist (or a textualist, for that matter) should find it easy to know how to decide the case. It turns out there were differences of opinion among the people who drafted the amendment, as to whether it would apply to those who merely were visiting. In addition, the concept of illegal immigration didn’t even exist until the first immigration laws, passed in 1875 after the 14th Amendment. The purpose of the 14th Amendment was to secure rights for former slaves, not to give citizenship to the children of pregnant Chinese tourists flying to the US in order to give birth and then leaving immediately after.

The originalists did the research and showed that the 14th Amendment was not intended or understood to grant birthright citizenship. The majority decided they’d rather talk about feudalism that pre-existed the 14th Amendment.

But I was disappointed to see the originalists bend over backwards to achieve their desired policy outcome and abandon originalist principles in the process.

This should have been 9-0. Have to amend the constitution.

I wish Sen. Eric Schmitt luck but it will never happen. The Dems want to destroy America.

bull shiite . we never agreed to that. subject to the jurisdiction always meant that the children of vermin sneaking in were subjects of the nation they came from.