Should the U.S. keep granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants if they’re born here? Does the 14th Amendment require that policy? I take up the questions at Bloomberg Opinion today.
I’d just add that the constitutional question came up during the confirmation hearings for Justice Samuel Alito. Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) kept demanding that Alito declare that birthright citizenship was in the amendment — “one of the most direct and clear provisions in the United States Constitution,” Schumer called it — and Alito kept saying he wasn’t going to comment on what could form the basis for a future case. I would not be surprised to see Judge Kavanaugh pressed on the same point, possibly by the same senator.