Legal Scholars Challenge Professor Yoo on 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause

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Despite what some legal scholars are claiming,the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment does not extend citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents are illegal aliens,or for that matter,lawful aliens such as tourists or foreign diplomats.

That includes our good friend, professor John Yoo. On Dec. 10, he published an op-ed insisting that arguments for a more limited interpretation of the citizenship clause must “disregard the plain text of the Constitution, the weight of the historical evidence from the time of the 14th Amendment’s ratification and more than 140 years of unbroken government practice and judicial interpretation.”

Supporters of birthright citizenship ignore the contrary evidence that shows their interpretation is wrong.The language in the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment says “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens.

Yet Yoo and others claim anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, no matter the legal status of their parents. They dismiss any contrary position as a modern reinvention promulgated by a few outlier academics at the Claremont Institute. But there are many other scholars who have added their voices to a growing body of scholarship that runs counter to that preferred interpretation.

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