Supreme Court gets history lesson as it threatens to blow up birthright citizenship

[turbinetree]

By Travis Gettys
Published March 17, 2026 9:05 AM ET

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two weeks on the birthright citizenship case, and legal experts chewed over the history of that issue.

The Reconstruction-era 14th Amendment grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," which was specifically intended to apply to the children born to former enslaved people. But experts explained on Slate's "Amicus" podcast how the history of migration informed that constitutional right.

"The biggest myth about American immigration is that until the federal government started enforcing our borders in the late 19th century, it was just open borders," said Anna O. Law, the Herbert Kurz chair in constitutional rights at CUNY Brooklyn College.

https://www.rawstory.com/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court/

[Walleye]

1. The statement "open borders" is always a lie

[CanonRay]

2. I always laugh when Italian MATAts claim their grandparents or great grandparents

came here "legally", There was no way to do it illegally. If you got here you were in,

[dem4decades]

3. They are the worst, the biggest hypocrites.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. My Dad's Parents Cane Here...

...in the 1920s.
Their experience was very different than family that immigrated earlier.
The only reason my grandparents were green-lighted was because they had 3 sponsors, one born in the US, and my grandfather was an experienced railroad worker, so there was a specific job waiting for him.
As you said, those here pre-WWI and (mom's side of the family), the 1890s, just showed up.
There were no laws to break.
My grandparents, on the other hand, had multiple hurdles to clear.
Things changed a lot in 12 or 15 years. Those changes, similar to now, were rooted in xenophobia.

[CanonRay]

6. My grandparents came in 1893

One of the earlier Sicilian immigrants. They had no skills and no money. I think the only restrictions were medical e.g. Tuberculosis.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Sounds About Right

The Calabrian side came here around that time.
My dad's side was from Sicily, too. A bit NW of Messina.
He worked on the FFSS. He took the ferry to Reggio, then got on the train Monday morning (he was a brakeman) & cam home Friday.
The Rock Island RR needed workers & he had experience.
His brother-in-law, now a US citizen, owned a barber shop off Taylor Street in Chicago.
So, it was established he had a skill in an in-demand job, and a place to live when they got here (at least for a while) so the US government said ok.
I'm sure you know Sicilians were being purged from government jobs in the 1920s & even though he was just a grunt, he believed it was a matter of time before he'd get axed.
So they came to the US. My aunt was born 2 years later, & my dad 3 years after that.

[LeftInTX]

8. My grandmother and great grandmother were deported after being held at Ellis Island in 1923

There were quotas.

Both of them got in 1925, because they were married to US citizens. That was the rule at the time.

My father's great uncle was also deported numerous times. He was considered, "Likely to be a charge" the first time. I think he first arrived in 1910. He died in 1920 in Adana, Turkey during a siege over there.

We weren't Italian. But the ships also would not accept everyone.

[wnylib]

9. I had an ultra RW coworker ask me if my

grandparents arrived legally in the US when their parents brought them here from the German Empire. My grandmother came in 1890 at age 4 with her parents and siblings. My grandfather was born 2 weeks after his parents got here in 1888 after fleeing political persecution by the Kaiser. The idiot coworker said that my grandfather was an anchor baby.

There was some vetting back then. Known criminals could not enter AFAIK. And there was screening for illnesses. At Ellis Island, there was a clinic for people with treatable diseases who had to remain there until cleared.

I told the idiot that their entry must have been accepted without a problem because the great-grandparents were naturalized 5 years later, as soon as they were eligible. My uncle showed me their citizenship papers when I was in high school and had an assignment to learn where my ancestors came from and why they left their homeland.

[Buckeyeblue]

5. The 14th amendment is pretty clear

If the SC was to try and slice and dice the 14th amendment to not apply to children born to parents who are not US citizens, we might as well toss the constitution.