Tennessee Attorney General Challenges Birthright Citizenship in the United States Supreme Court

Tennessee Attorney General Challenges Birthright Citizenship in the United States Supreme Court

NASHVILLE- Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, joined by attorneys general from Iowa and 23 other states, filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court today, urging the Court to clarify that the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship to everyone born in the United States. The States argue that lower courts have misinterpreted the Citizenship Clause to require automatic citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents' residency and immigration status.

"The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn't square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War," said Attorney General Skrmetti. "If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country. Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents' immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship. This case could allow the Supreme Court to resolve a constitutional question with far-reaching implications for the States and our nation."

The States' brief lays out historical evidence from the 1860s through the early 1900s that supports this interpretation. Congressional debates, executive branch practice, and legal commentary from the Reconstruction Era consistently emphasized that citizenship required parental domicile and allegiance to the United States, not temporary or unlawful presence. The brief recognizes that many people now cite the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark for the proposition that the Citizenship Clause guarantees birthright citizenship even to children born here to transient or illegally-present parents. But as the brief notes, the parents in that case were lawfully present and permanently domiciled in the United States.

Tennessee and Iowa are joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming in this amicus brief.

Read the brief.

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