Could birthright citizenship be the next Roe v. Wade?
by Alex Swoyer · The Washington TimesIt took nearly 50 years for conservatives to see Roe v. Wade overturned. They’re hoping it won’t take that long to nix Trump v. Barbara, last month’s decision on birthright citizenship.
One of the influential voices championing that comparison is Rachel Bovard, a conservative policy wonk and vice president of programming at the Conservative Partnership Institute.
She called for birthright citizenship to be a litmus test for every future conservative nominee to the Supreme Court.
“Only nominees prepared to reconsider expansive readings of the Citizenship Clause — and who understand that a nation is more than simply a collection of individuals in the same geographic location — deserve elevation,” she wrote in the First Things blog.
The court ruled that the Citizenship Clause in the 14th Amendment guarantees automatic citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil, including children of unauthorized immigrants and temporary legal visitors.
The court struck down President Trump’s executive order to strip recognition of citizenship from those two categories.
Five justices, including two GOP appointees, ruled that the Constitution guaranteed citizenship. Four Republican appointees disagreed on that, though one of them, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, still argued that a 1940 law superseded the president’s order.
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Alex Swoyer
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