Birthright citizenship denial by Texas officials is unconstitutional

Let’s start with the text. The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says, “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 primary author of those words was Republican Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan. “This amendment I have offered,” Howard told the Senate on May 30, 1866, “is simply declarative of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.” …

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“The Fourteenth Amendment,” the [Supreme] Court [in 1898] observed in Wong Kim Ark, “affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes.”

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