The Liberal Scholars Who Influenced Trump's Attack on Birthright Citizenship

"As constitutional turns of phrase go, the part of the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees birthright citizenship seems more straightforward than most: "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." The legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar has called the Citizenship Clause "one of the richest single sentences in the entire Constitution.""

"In January, however, President Trump issued an executive order decreeing that birthright citizenship would be restricted to the children of citizens and permanent residents. The order, which was quickly paused by multiple legal challenges, relies on a fringe interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment that immigration restrictionists and white nationalists have been pushing for decades. They insist that the Citizenship Clause's clarity can be unravelled simply by tugging on its most mundane phrase: "subject to the jurisdiction thereof.""

"Over time, these five words have assumed a "Da Vinci Code"-esque significance among anti-immigration activists and a tiny coterie of legal scholars, who believe that the amendment's authors never intended to grant automatic citizenship to children of undocumented or temporary immigrants. The phrase is "pregnant with meaning," Kris Kobach, the attorney general of Kansas and an influential proponent of state-level immigration restrictions, said. It provides the rationale for Trump's executive order and is regularly wielded by immigration hard-liners like Stephen Miller."

President Trump issued an executive order aiming to limit birthright citizenship to children of citizens and lawful permanent residents. The order relies on a contested interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' advanced by immigration restrictionists and white nationalists. Advocates claim the amendment's framers never intended automatic citizenship for children of undocumented or temporary immigrants. The interpretation has historical roots in a 1985 political-theory work by two Yale professors. Legal challenges quickly paused the executive order. Some of the scholars associated with the earlier argument now express regret about the wider political use of their work.

Read at The New Yorker