The Supreme Court Upholds The Constitution. Barely.
from the and-perhaps-not-for-long dept
Look, 5-4 Supreme Court decisions count just as much as 9-0 ones, and a 5-4 decision getting it right is still a win, but for a number of reasons, the 5-4 decision in Trump v. Barbara, regarding the issue of birthright citizenship is terrifying.
This isn’t a complicated issue. This isn’t an issue that should even be before the Supreme Court at all. The text of the Fourteenth Amendment is crystal clear:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
The history of the Fourteenth Amendment and every single damn case about this particular issue from after it was added to the Constitution until now has been abundantly, ridiculously clear: anyone born in the US is a US citizen. The only exception is kids of diplomats who are not considered “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The whole question of whether a child born in the US to foreign-born parents is a citizen was settled clearly in 1898 in US v. Wong Kim Ark and literally no one has seriously questioned this issue at all since then.
Until a group of freaking racists took over the White House and wanted to drum up hatred of foreigners and anyone not white. The Stephen Miller-led White House issued a hilarious/terrifying executive order pretending to overrule the clear meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. That executive order was quickly challenged, and a year and a half later, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment means what everyone knew it meant from the beginning. But just barely.
Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued what should have been a 9-0 one page ruling saying “yes, we can fucking read the plain text of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it says exactly what it says, and no, the President can’t overturn that by executive order, no matter how racist he is.”
Instead, in the past 17 months or so, a whole industry of grifting academics came out of the woodwork to manufacture, from absolutely nothing, made up claims that the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was in dispute. Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito used that shoddy scholarship, among other things, to justify their arguments that Stephen Miller is somehow right about the Fourteenth Amendment not applying to a situation where it clearly applies.
Justice Kavanaugh “concurred” in part on the judgment, but not on the basic Constitutional interpretation, which is the whole ball game.
Kavanaugh’s faux-concurrence is particularly insane, given that one of the reasons we hear from the conservative wing of the Supreme Court regarding things like the Second Amendment and abortion rights is that due to “history and tradition,” we have to interpret these parts of the Constitution as they were originally interpreted, not based on any changes in the world. Except, here, Kavanaugh is suddenly, magically, stupendously, a believer in the “living Constitution” where he gets to rewrite the meaning based on different circumstances.
Could you imagine Kavanaugh writing this in a case about gun control, for example:
The original constitutional principles do not change absent a constitutional amendment, but the relevant principles— both the rules and exceptions alike—must be faithfully applied not only to circumstances as they existed in 1787, 1791, and 1868, for example, but also to modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution’s Framers.
Kavanaugh now insists that these “modern situations” include the rise in undocumented immigration to America that means we need to completely revise our understanding of the Constitution. Somehow “modern situations” don’t apply to things like assault weapons as compared to muskets when we’re talking about the Second Amendment.
Jay Willis at Balls and Strikes gets the situation exactly right:
The fact that Trump’s nakedly xenophobic attack on birthright citizenship earned four votes—four fucking votes—is a national embarrassment, and a heart-stoppingly frightening signal about what may lie ahead if Trump (for any reason) gets to replace Roberts or one of the liberal justices in 2027 or 2028. The upshot of Barbara is that, as a country, we are but one MAGA dead-ender away from a Court that is willing (and maybe excited) to undo Reconstruction, just as soon as Republican politicians bring a case that will allow them to do it.
For more than two centuries, the Court has proclaimed itself to be the ultimate authority on the law, with the unreviewable power to say what it means, no matter how unpopular its rulings might be. These days, what passes for “courage” from the Court is an opinion that makes clear to Trump that there is a limit to the justices’ willingness to allow him to unilaterally amend the Constitution, but that he is really, really close to persuading them to get rid of it.
Willis also points out that, even if the majority ruling got this correct, tons of people had to suffer for a year and a half waiting for what should have been dismissed out of hand:
Trump v. Barbara is the stupidest Supreme Court case in recent memory: the nation’s nine fanciest lawyers spending God knows how many hours pondering a question about the Fourteenth Amendment’s meaning that a bright sixth-grader could have answered without difficulty in roughly 30 seconds. The fact that a bare majority of the Court eventually arrived at the howlingly obvious, so-simple-it-feels-like-a-trick-question result—and only after months of forcing noncitizen parents to wonder if their children would soon be rendered stateless—is not evidence of the justices’ boundless intellect or analytical rigor. It is a damning indictment of an institution that is teetering on the brink of stuffing the entire enterprise of constitutional governance in the garbage.
And, there is fear among many that this 5-4 ruling is just a prelude to something way worse. Elie Mystal at The Nation makes this point clearly:
Trump tried to change the definition of citizenship by executive fiat in clear opposition to the text of the 14th Amendment, and he almost got away with it. This time. And we know there will almost certainly be a next time; the Supreme Court loves to give Trump multiple bites at the apple whenever he is trying to graft bigotry onto the Constitution.
As has happened in the past, the dissents laid out the road map for how Trump or future bigots might get around the Citizenship Clause. Trump tried to take out both children of people with temporary status (like people on work visas) and children of people without proper status (like people who have overstayed travel visas or crossed the border in secret), and that appears to have been his mistake. The dissenters have different arguments for why the children of people who have temporary status should be denied rights than for why children whose parents are out of status (or never had status) should be denied those rights. It’s possible, even likely, that if Trump attacks these two groups separately, he’ll squeak his way to five votes on one or both fronts.
Yes, a 5-4 decision is still a win and it still counts in the books as a win, but the fact that Republicans like JD Vance are already salivating about how they just need to put one more MAGA-brained Justice on the Court and they get to overturn the Fourteenth Amendment as soon as possible should be a warning to everyone who actually believes the Constitution should be seen as saying what it clearly says.
In that video, JD Vance admits that MAGA is just salivating about getting another vote on the Supreme Court to try again on this issue. He literally says, if they can get one of the five Justices who signed onto the majority off the Supreme Court before Trump leaves office, he hopes they can get someone else on instead who will flip the vote.
As Moira Donegan notes, a “5-4 ruling on birthright citizenship is an invitation to try again.” And they will try.
This kind of ruling is why the entire judicial system needs a radical rethink, and quickly. As we’ve seen this week, the Supreme Court is clearly broken. And a 5-4 decision, while still a win for common sense and the plain reading of the Constitution, feels like a hollow victory — one that is likely not long for this world without a radical change to the way the Supreme Court functions.
Filed Under: 14th amendment, birthright citizenship, brett kavanaugh, donald trump, jd vance, john roberts, stephen miller, trump v. barbara
Comments on “The Supreme Court Upholds The Constitution. Barely.”
Any Democrat aiming for any kind of office in 2027 and beyond who doesn’t promise to stack the Supreme Court is not a serious candidate and should be ignored in favor of any Democrat who will make that promise. This is now base level, bare minimum, “you say it or you lose”–type shit. Without any changes to the court, any legislative wins the Democrats might get will be immediately undone by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court because they decided that the Constitution itself doesn’t say what it actually says. That kind of bullshit might fly in the Vatican, but it can’t and shouldn’t be the norm when we’re talking about secular law. Pack the court and tell anyone who opposes the idea to go fuck themselves.
Re:
There is no way to use a political tool without authorization that without opening the legal and moral venue for the Republicans to reverse it when they are at the helm.
You need to get to 2/3 majorities in order to get there in a manner to seal the system from the inside.
Sealing it from the outside requires suspending the Constitution. Which essentially means another civil war.
Trump won the popular vote last time round with clear threats of going as corrupt and fascist as possible. Getting to a position where people will vote for a Congress with two thirds majorities of Democrats is not in the books.
Simple majorities is all that they can hope for, and they need to use that mandate to rub all of the Republican corruption into people’s faces until they get the majorities required for a mandate to refortify the Constitution and its enforcement mechanisms.
You either have a long, hard road of convincing people to take, or you will not get anywhere for long.
You’ll need the same or stronger majorities to stack the Supreme Court as you’ll need to impeach particular Supreme Court Justices for not following the plain latter and intent of the Constitution and or for letting themselves be bribed up to the gills by parties subject to their jurisdiction. The latter would be working inside of the system. And it would address the problem head-on instead of trying to water it down.
Re: Re:
This is true, but as we’re seeing now, moot. The legal and moral venue is already wide open. You cannot force an opposing party not to use available tools. The only thing you can control is how you act (and in many cases, the only way to to disincentivize a counterparty is to inflict consequences).
Stacking only takes a majority, impeachment is 2/3rds. It’s significantly easier to do the former. And stacking isn’t meaningfully “outside” the system any more than impeachment is.
You have a long hard road of convincing people regardless which road you take. The only difference is that packing gives you more room to maneuver in the short term. Having that breathing room every 4-8 years half the time is imperfect, but better than never having it and letting yourself be slowly smothered (often quietly, in ways the public doesn’t even notice). And that’s assuming you can’t compound the advantage from that breathing room.
SCOTUS is not going to let you do that if you give them a veto. We’ve done this song and dance, with Trump v US, among other things.
Re:
I don’t think stacking the court is a good idea. That’s an escalation that never ends and the court needs a de-escalation of politics. Better to more aggressively impeach justices who have clearly breached the ethics required for the job. Set up some sort of (non-political) way to judge the judges and let it do its thing. I know it’s tempting to go right for the solution but the solution only lasts as long as a strongman can hold it together. Virtuous processes self perpetuate long after their champions are gone.
Re: Re:
If we replaced you with a bot, do you think anyone would notice?
Re: Re:
The judges who sit on the Supreme Court have lifetime appointments. Given the ages of the current judges on that bench, there’s a good chance that at least two of them decide to retire by the end of 2028 so Trump can name their successors and keep the court stacked in favor of conservative ideology. How do you “de-escalate” a court being ruled by a single ideology for the next twenty years if not by stacking the court so it’ll be at least marginally more fair for anyone who isn’t a straight white conservative Christian? And how would you even “de-escalate” the court without such a move being seen as an escalation by right-wingers?
Oh, is that all? Never mind that even if Democrats take the House and Senate back, the chances of an impeachment ending in a successful ousting of any of the conservative judges are slimmer than that of successfully ousting Donald Trump.
As someone who believes in non-violence in most contexts and trying to solve problems through good politics and all that kind of Pollyanna-ish bullshit: A refusal to do anything substantive to correct for the overt and fascistic right-wing bias of the Supreme Court for a generation is cowardice. You don’t lay down arms and hope the other side has a sense of mercy when they’ve dropped dozens of bodies all around you.
We’re talking about a court that was literally one vote away from deciding that the Constitution doesn’t say what it clearly says. This court doesn’t even respect its past decisions! How in the actual hell do you see any of what this Supreme Court has done and not think drastic measures must be taken to correct for its bullshit?
Re: Re: Re:
Because “look what you made me do” is the last moral refuge of tyrants and despots. I get that you probably mean well, but more blood and misery can be laid at the feet of that kind of thinking than perhaps anything else in human history. The alternative is not necessarily passivity though. You can resist in ways that reinforce the system rather than degrade it. Truth has to work harder than lies. Fixing things is harder than breaking them. That’s all true, but it’s the essential essence of what elevates us above cavemen.
Re: Re: Re:2
Again, I say this as someone who has preached much the same thing before: That shit won’t work here.
Even if the Democrats win the House and the Senate later this year, they will not have the numbers to successfully oust any of Trump’s SCOTUS appointees. Their only solution would be to wait until 2029, when a potential Democrat president takes office, and nuke the filibuster so they can shove through court reforms without the president using executive orders to undo those reforms.
We’re talking about a Supreme Court nearly overturning the Constitution itself. They play by Calvinball rules and give conservatives (and Trump) more wins than losses by effectively ignoring precedent and logic. Hell, 303 Creative—a decision I largely agree with on its face—was a largely bullshit case that SCOTUS took up only to extend religious privilege. If even I, someone who has preached that “we must save the institutions” bullshit on this site, can see how bad things have gotten? That should be a wake-up call for you.
When two people have guns and want so very badly to shoot the other, one of those people putting down their gun and begging for mercy is likely to end very poorly for that person. You’re effectively saying Democrats should put down their guns and beg for mercy. How well do you think that’ll end when Republicans, including the conservatives on the Supreme Court, see that begging as an excuse to open fire?
Re: Re: Re:3 'The rules say you can't do that!' '... And?' 'So stop it!' 'Make me if you can.'
Or to put it another way: If you’re in a card game and the other player starts to openly cheat sticking to the previous rules rather than swapping to the new set they decided was acceptable is a good move only if you want to lose.
Re: Re: Re:3
You are assuming that the Do Nothing Democrats are holding real guns in the first place. They are street performers who only use props. They are perfectly happy “fighting for” issue x, y, and z, because that battle gives them a spotlight and a monologue to beg for donations. Actually solving the issue would mean taking their final bow and facing the risky, exhausting work of developing a whole new production that may not be as successful. They’d rather lose the war heroically to keep the show alive than win quietly and have to go home.
Re: Re: Re:
Because he’s a fascist pretending to be a tongue-clucking moderate.
If there’s one thing that’s consistent about n00bdragon it’s that he consistently opposes any action that will restrict MAGA in any effective way, but never comes out and says that’s his position.
Re: Re: Re:2
Because that’s not my position and never has been my position. You may disagree with me, and that’s fine, but you’re assuming stuff about me that is honestly really gross and reflects more poorly upon you than me.
Re: Re: Re:3
Then suggest something that, if Democrats take Congress later this year and the presidency in 2028, you would want to see Democrats do that would restrict MAGA in any effective way. And don’t say “impeachment”; that isn’t going to happen, not for Trump or SCOTUS, because the GOP will vote against both impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate.
I’ve been raked over the coals in the past because I’ve opposed violent solutions to political problems, especially the rise of American fascism. I accept that my position in that regard is unpopular. But even I see what’s happening and think “man, the Dems need to throw some metaphorical elbows the first chance they get”. What’s keeping you from thinking the same thing when SCOTUS is now a single vote away from effectively rewriting the Constitution?
Re: Re:
That isn’t going to be seen as a de-escalation.
But even if it were, the issue with escalation is that it’s a unilateral decision. If one party wants always escalate, they can. Unilaterally de-escalating means giving up.
Even if you could hypothetically do that, it would be politicized. A good recent example are the various (valid) Trump charges. On top of that, impeachment has a much higher requirement (2/3rd in the Senate) that is much harder, nearly unreachable given how it is currently structured.
There’s a reason the Founders gave impeachment and court expansion to Congress, and it’s because they’re fundamentally political acts/positions.
And that’s taking the various premises at face value (that impeaching is less political and more virtuous, that an ethics policy can constrain partisan judges, etc).
Re: Re:
This is why my plan includes a more radical rethinking, not just “stacking the court” but changing the nature of the court:
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/16/the-case-for-a-100-justice-supreme-court/
Expand it to 100 Justices so that no single justice can matter that much. Along with that, I’d change rules on jurisdiction shopping, increase the number of circuits, and make a bunch of other procedural changes as well.
It’s not “stacking” the court, which leads to escalation. It’s revamping how the courts work.
Re: nt a serious candidate
I would limit this to presidential and senatorial candidates. There is little your school board members or tax collector can do to improve the composition of that court.
And, yes, I think the court has beclowned itself. This should have been a five-minute discussion with 9-0 or 7-2 vote.
Remember that U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (28-Mar-1898), was a 7-2 vote, with fear expressed that persons born of U.S. parents travelling abroad might wind up as Englishmen. Id at 707 (Fuller, dissenting).
Matt Walsh said we need to get immigrants at by any force needed and declared that immigrants are an invading force trying to spawn on our soil.
A Tennessee congressman is putting out a bill that would ban pregnant women from entering the US if they aren’t a citizen or have permanent status.
A right wing social media figure suggested requiring pregnant women be sterilized before being allowed in.
And that’s only some of the racist and sexist garbage I saw as republicans lifted the mask to declare that they are opposed to legal immigration.
So it seems to me that even if you are in the country illegally, you are still subject to the jurisdiction thereof. If you aren’t subject then the countries laws don’t apply to you which means they don’t really have legal grounds to throw you out.
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On the flip side, it also means you and your family can’t object when that country decides to straight-up execute you. If the laws about immigration don’t apply, all the laws that keep the state from killing you for no reason also don’t apply. Is that a road you want to go down?
Re: Re:
I’ve said before that people should avoid using the word “outlaw” incorrectly, on the basis that civilized countries no longer practice outlawry. Even people breaking laws are subject to their protections.
This seems like a misunderstanding of the Constitutional basis of law. In the U.S., laws do not keep the state from doing stuff; they permit it to exist at all, and to do certain specified things. Even the Supreme Court sometimes acts like the state can do anything not explicitly banned, but, as we see, sometimes they’re full of shit.
Your interpretation, by the way, would permit the U.S. to kill anyone with diplomatic immunity (a fair interpretation of “not subject to the jurisdiction thereof”).
Re: Re:
Yeah, I realized a moment after I hit post that it would make them Outlaws which means the government could do that.. and anyone could if they wanted to also. Though at times it feels like the government is currently treating illegal immigrants as though they actually are out side the protection of the law, thats not something we should accept as a polite society.
Re: Re:
Well, as we’ve seen, Trump and his ilk don’t believe that the laws of this country apply to citizens either (unless those laws are beneficial to specific citizens that he/they favor, such as MAGA cultists). (So, yes, he’s still planning to never leave the White House.)
Re: Re: Whoever
I think you have that back to front. If the laws don’t apply to an illegal immigrant, then that illegal immigrant could kill someone and there would be no law under which they could be prosecuted.
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That’s the fundamental belief of the sovereign citizen people. No laws apply without individual consent.
Re: Re: Re:
…then what would the word “illegal” even mean?
Re: Re: Re:
No, I don’t. If the laws of the United States do not apply to undocumented immigrants, that means their protections do not apply. That means no due process and no habeas corpus—which means the state could bypass the courts altogether and just execute undocumented immigrants because the law doesn’t protect them.
But if you think the courts wouldn’t jail an undocumented immigrant for committing a felony-level crime, you’d do well to disabuse yourself of that false belief. If anything, they’d be jailed permanently because, as I said above, no due process and no habeas corpus. Permanent solitary confinement, torture, and even extrajudicial execution would be merely icing on the cake.
We protect the rights of non-citizens because removing that layer of protection means the state can violate your rights if it declares you a non-citizen. Whether you committed a crime is largely irrelevant.
Re: Re: Re:2 People not subject to the jurisdiction
There is a class of people who are definitely not subject to the jurisdiction of the US: diplomats. So what happens when a diplomat is arrested?
What would happen if a diplomat were summarily executed? Would those responsible not themselves be arrested?
Re: Re: Re:3
Diplomatic immunity would likely apply. Countries tend to allow diplomats some level of immunity from some level of misdemeanor criminality so they can keep relations with the diplomats’ home countries friendly (enough). Random people crossing a border without papers aren’t diplomats and wouldn’t receive that same consideration. That said, I couldn’t say whether the execution of an undocumented immigrant for crossing the border illegally might worsen relations with that person’s home country.
Roberts and other justices may be the interpreters of the constitution but that doesnt mean they are the end authority. Ideally congress would just pass new amendments that make the language even more plain or negate bad supreme court rulings. Or congress could impeach the justices and remove them from the court.
Of course just because congress could do those things doesnt mean they will ever happen. At least not in the current political environment.
Upholding the Constitution
It’s evident that Kavanaugh is in need of some remedial English lessons.
I think it should be stated explicitly that the framers foresaw the possibility of unforeseen circumstances, and provided for it. That’s why we’re talking about an amendment from 1868—and why that year was mentioned—so of course was not anticipated when the Constitution was written. They had a situation to deal with, and dealt with it in the proper way; there’s no reason it couldn’t happen again, if the people wanted it to.
For what it’s worth, it’s very unlikely that Trump will have the opportunity to reshape the makeup of the court. Roberts, Sotomayor and Kagan are too young and aren’t going anywhere, and Trump already put in Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, with Biden putting in Jackson. At most you might see Alito or Thomas retire during the post-election period this year or in 2028 if the Democrats win back the senate in either case (and the presidency in 2028) in order to put toadies in those seats to maintain control over them, but that’s it.
Here’s hoping the Democrats gain control over the senate in 2026, or at least 2028. It’s gonna be an uphill battle, but there is a decent chance it happens as the GOP is dragged down by their insane god-king.
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Oh, and just to clarify why Trump replacing Thomas and Alito wouldn’t make much difference for those who haven’t obviously figured it out – they’re already nakedly partisan toadies who nearly always vote for whatever Trump wants to begin with. While a Dem president replacing them would be great, Trump replacing them would just be maintaining the current state of the court.
Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh aren’t great, but Barrett at least is uh, less crazy, and they’re at least not entirely nakedly partisan. You can tell that Trump is furious that they’re more independent than he wanted and that he wishes he put in justices who are straight up nakedly loyal to him.
Re: Re: It's kind of amazing
That Amy Coney Barrett turns out to be one of the “less crazy” ones.
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It honestly might be an improvement. They are genuinely more in the tank for Trump than any of Trump’s own appointees.
Re: Re: The Supremes
Trump can’t make much difference, but he can lock in the current status by replacing Thomas and Alito with some equally bigoted judges who will sit on the court for a couple of decades or more.
My guess is that Alito and Thomas will resign this year if Republicans lose control of the Senate.
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But then where would they get their bribes?
Conservatives are Confederates that never stopped being traitors trying to destroy America.
Even if we assume illegal, immigration is a real problem that needs to be solved, which it isn’t, the bigger issue is this
How, in the world can a president issue any order to overturn a constitutional amendment?
This case should have been tossed out of the court system and the Supreme Court should have told Congress to pass another constitutional amendment if they wanted to remove the 14th amendment.
The scary part is that this same issue could happen with any other amendment. What happens if Trump issues an order saying he doesn’t like the 4th or the 6th? Will the case go all the way to the Supreme Court and they will rule about the same way, and then those amendments will just barely survive on a 5-4 decision?
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Well, at least there’s one amendment we can be sure they won’t restrict.
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I know you’re baiting the assumption that it’s the 2nd but too late. He already shat on that one too. Remember the bump stock ban? The entire document is meaningless to Trumpists.
The bullet (temporarily) dodged is SO much worse...
As the article rightly points out the fourteenth amendment is crystal clear with no room for confusion or debate: If you’re born in the US you’re a US citizen, end of story. Given how crystal clear the amendment is while on the surface this case was about overturning one constitutional amendment I’m strongly of the opinion that the question that was really presented and ruled on is vastly more horrifying:
‘Does a republican president have the legal and constitutional authority to use EO’s to overturn or re-write constitutional amendments, completely bypassing the current process and restrictions in place that would otherwise be required for or prohibit respectively that action?’
The fact that that question made it to the US supreme court to begin with and took more than five minutes to answer is eclipsed only by the fact that the answer to the above question was one vote away from being yes on the ‘Oh the US is fucked‘ scale.
Fascinating (& horrifying) view from the outside
It’s amazing that a country so completely built upon immigration and the suppression of the natives should have the hubris to look at its own founding principals so poorly whilst at the same time playing in a vaudeville show on the subject of the country’s 250th birthday.
(Yes, I know, non-US citizens need not comment as it’s not our dog-and-pony show, but, ya know, perhaps some people should look in the mirror sometimes!)
Re:
As one of the monkeys in this particular circus: A lot of us are well aware of the dire state of things, but finding ways to do something about that is a hell of a lot harder than being aware something must be done.
Re: Re: @the Monkeys
Yeah, the monkeys aren’t generally the problem here. We’re very much aware from the outside that it’s the ring-leaders, the clowns, and the ringmaster who’ve spent insufficient time in the hall of mirrors.
(Wow, what a tortured metaphor!)
Re: not only built on immigration
Not only is it built on immigration, but immigrants and particularly undocumented immigrants are the ones propping up social security. Without them paying in with no expectation of payout, the system would be bankrupt some years sooner than the anticipated 2032 date.
We can't trust this court. It shows no consistency.
The Roberts court is not consistent to precedent (even in regards to its own prior rulings) nor to any legal theory but only what serves a specific (far-right, pro-Republican, white Christian nationalist, corporation-serving) ideology.
We’ve already seen the way SCOTUS has dismantled the fourth and fifth amendments to the Constitution of the United States. And we’ve seen how the Roberts court has nullified the VRA.
It can apply the same methods to dismantle the rest of the Constitution, particularly the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and nineteenth amendments.
And left alone unhindered to continue its work without consequences, I have no doubt it will.
Consider a child born here to a foreign mother who then takes the child to the mother’s native country where that child resides forever. How is that child “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States? Asking for a textualist friend.