Birthright Citizenship Roundup

Legal History Blog [Unofficial] April 1, 2026

Source

From the op-ed pages of the New York Times : "Trump Says Birthright Citizenship Was Only for the Children of Slaves. He’s Wrong" -- by Martha S. Jones (Johns Hopkins) and Kate Masur(Northwestern).
Over in the Washington Post : "Trump officials cite white supremacists in bid to end birthright citizenship" --with quotes from legal historians Lucy Salyer(University of New Hampshire) and Sam Erman (University of Michigan).
Over in The Economist : What the Supreme Court will make of birthright citizenship--with quotes from Anthony Michael Kreis (Georgia State University) and Anna Law (Brooklyn College).
Over in the Wall Street Journal : Randy E. Barnett believes that Trump Is Right on Birthright Citizenship: The 14th Amendment's authors would exclude illegal and visiting aliens from U.S. “jurisdiction.
The NYT reports that Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order at Supreme Court Splits Conservative Scholars.
And many legal historians make or criticize what Mother Jones calls The Nonsense Case Against Birthright Citizenship.
Update : Jamelle Bouie on The Birthright Con (NYT).

This Roundup has been compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.