Dear Friend,
The Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, led by Dr. John C. Eastman, has filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to reconsider automatic citizenship for children of temporary visitors and those here illegally.
The case, Barbara v. Trump, offers a historic opportunity to correct decades of confusion surrounding the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. At stake is whether citizenship extends to anyone born on American soil—or only to those born to parents fully subject to U.S. jurisdiction, as the amendment’s framers intended.
As our brief explains, the Fourteenth Amendment codified the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which granted citizenship only to those “not subject to any foreign power.” This principle, rooted in the Declaration of Independence, replaced the feudal idea of birthright subjectship with one of mutual allegiance and consent.
