citizenship

Why We are Still Debating Birthright Citizenship

by Martha S. Jones

Opposition to birthright citizenship has, historically and today, reflected opposition to the idea of equal membership in the political community of the nation and has been inextricable from the idea that white Americans should be privileged citizens, argues the leading historian of the subject. 

Professor Discusses the Hidden History of Passports

Patrick Bixby's work examines the cultural history of the passport and how documents secure the freedom to travel. 

SCOTUS Declines to Hear Challenge to Citizenship Law Disadvantaging American Samoans

Residents of US territories are able to receive birthright citizenship if an act of Congress grants it to them. While Congress's refusal to do so for residents of American Samoa has clear racist roots, the Court declined to hear a case challenging this exclusion. 

The Reconstruction Amendments and the Basis of American Abortion Rights

by Peggy Cooper Davis

When the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were debated, concerns about the protection of both public rights of citizenship and private, intimate rights of individuals were front and center. There is, notwithstanding Samuel Alito's opinion, a long tradition of constitutional respect for privacy.

What is Citizenship? A Conversation with Mae Ngai on The Takeaway

The Takeaway speaks with historian Mae Ngai about how notions of U.S. citizenship have changed over time.

Allegiance, Birthright and Race in America

by William Darity, Jr. and Charles Ali Bey

The Thirteenth Amendment demonstrated that a person could be both a citizen and a slave (via conviction). What, then, was the citizenship status of the enslaved in America, and what does that tell us about the debates over birthright citizenship and reparations today? 

The Trump Administration Just Made the Citizenship Test Harder. How Would You Do?

Can you ace the new test for becoming a naturalized US Citizen? 

128 Tricky Questions That Could Stand Between You and U.S. Citizenship

Irish Immigrant Maeve Higgins looks at the expanded civics test for naturalization, and gives it a failing grade--unless its purpose is to reduce immigration. 

Constitutional Textualism and Congressional Debate Over the 14th Amendment

by Alan J. Singer

Supreme Court decisions based on text without context have been responsible for some of the greatest perversions of justice in United States history, mostly around denying the scope of authority the 14th Amendment grants to the government to enforce civil equality.

Trump Said Two Years Ago That He Would Deny Citizenship to Americans Like Kamala Harris

In 2018, the president called birthright citizenship “ridiculous” and vowed to stop it by executive order.

Birtherism 2.0

by Matthew Yglesias

Right-wing challenges to Kamala Harris's eligibility for the presidency depend on a legal argument that American-born children of immigrants are a lesser category of citizen. There is no basis under the Constitution for this. 

Of Course Kamala Harris is a Citizen

by Derek Litvak

John Eastman's claims that Kamala Harris is not a natural-born U.S. citizen fly in the face of 14th Amendment jurisprudence and Eastman's own prior defenses of Ted Cruz's eligibility for the presidency. 

Citizenship, the 14th Amendment, and Trump’s War on Undocumented Immigrants

by Alan J. Singer

Recent attacks on Kamala Harris's citizenship and eligibility to serve as Vice President depend on willful misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment and ignorance of the specific racist injustices it was written to prevent. 

The Right Questions Kamala Harris's Citizenship, Eligibility to Be Vice President

A Newsweek op ed argues that because Kamala Harris's parents were not US citizens at the time she was born in Oakland, CA, that she does not qualify as a "natural born" citizen. Historians respond. 

"It Has Not Been My Habit to Yield": Charles Sumner and the Fight for Equal Naturalization Rights

by Lucy Salyer

Senator Charles Sumner lost his battle on the Fourth of July 1870, with dire consequences for both Asian immigrant communities and the prospects of a more racially egalitarian America. 

15th Turns 150!

The presence of new citizens in the form of formerly enslaved people forced Congress to consider what citizenship and voting actually meant. 

Responsibility and Civility: The Unwritten Essentials

by Mary Lindemann

Critical to the prospering of any academic group are the unwritten expectations that underlie and ground its workings. When they’re observed, organizations prosper; when they’re disregarded, things go terribly wrong.

Counting Everyone—Citizens and Non-Citizens—In the 2020 Census is Crucial

by Brendan A. Shanahan

Even without a citizenship question, the Trump administration wants to shape how states reapportion their legislatures.

Citizenship Day Used to Be Called 'I Am an American Day.' Here's How It Came to Be—and Why It Changed

Long before Citizenship Day was made official, there was “I Am An American Day.” Its initial conception was a sign of its times, and its evolution has been significant too.

The History of Citizenship Day Is a Reminder That Being an American Has Always Been Complicated

by S. Deborah Kang

“We welcome you,” Truman declared, “not to a narrow nationalism but to a great community based on a set of universal ideals.”