🚨The Trump admin has filed its reply brief in the birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court. It opens: The “main object” of the Citizenship Clause was to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children, whose allegiance to the United States had generally been established through generations of parental domicile. By contrast, aliens who are just passing through the United States, and those who cross our borders illegally, lack ties of allegiance and do not obtain the “priceless and profound gift” of citizenship for their children. To receive citizenship under the Clause, a person must be both born “in the United States” and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof…” That language grants citizenship to children “completely subject” to the United States’ “political jurisdiction.” Children of temporarily present or illegal aliens do not qualify because their parents are not domiciled in, and thus do not owe the requisite allegiance to, the United States. Temporarily present aliens are by definition not domiciled here, while illegal aliens lack the legal capacity to form such a domicile.
