The Supreme Court already decided birthright citizenship—in 1898

By Christopher J. Hajec

In all the debates and court decisions about President Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship to children born to U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, one central fact has been overlooked. This fact, once grasped, should guide everything Congress does, everything the president does, and everything the Supreme Court does about birthright citizenship.

That fact is that the Supreme Court already decided the meaning of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it did so by announcing a rule that the president’s executive order substantially—but not entirely—complies with.

The Citizenship Clause provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

The Supreme Court definitively interpreted the Citizenship Clause in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, decided in 1898. At issue was the citizenship status of a man born in the United States to noncitizen Chinese parents. Though this decision has always been challenging to read, the Court was clear enough when it held:

Chinese persons, born out of the United States, remaining subjects of the Emperor of China, and not having become citizens of the United States, are entitled to the protection of and owe allegiance to the United States, so long as they are permitted by the United States to reside here [emphasis added]; and are ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ in the same sense as all other aliens residing in the United States.

In light of this still-binding precedent, what should Congress, the president, and the courts do? Congress should follow Wong Kim Ark, and provide that, going forward, only those born in the United States to parents with lawful permission to reside here will be citizens.

Whether Congress acts or not, the president should pull and replace his current birthright citizenship executive order—an act that would immediately reset the cases now going against it.

full story at https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/09/the_supreme_court_already_decided_birthright_citizenship_in_1898.html

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