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A recent court ruling about faraway American Samoa may have profound implications for a conflict that’s been going on for nearly 200 years: who gets to be an American citizen.

Debates over who gets citizenship and what kind of citizenship they get have always been intertwined with race in American history, as we have learned through our individual on the of and and the research we have done together on .

Nonetheless, even in the highly racialized political environment of the late 19th century, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed an expansive view of birthright citizenship – that people born in a country are automatically citizens of that nation. In an 1898 ruling, the court decreed that the children of immigrants were citizens, regardless of their parents’ ancestry.

That decision laid the groundwork for the 21st-century ruling that people born in the U.S. Pacific island territory of . If , the ruling would overturn more than a century of federal policy, including congressional refusal to grant American Samoans citizenship status.

Citizenship By Birth

Federal laws govern some people’s citizenship – such as those who seek to be or with at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen; the law says they, too, may claim U.S. citizenship. Similarly, children from other countries who are become citizens themselves when the adoption is finalized.

But most citizens of the U.S. are born, not made. Before the Civil War, the U.S. had generally followed the English practice of granting citizenship to .

In 1857, though, the Supreme Court had decided the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, with Chief Justice Roger Taney declaring that – whether free or enslaved, and regardless of where they were born – were not actually U.S. citizens.

Legal And Constitutional Transformation

After the Civil War, Congress explicitly rejected the Dred Scott decision, first by , and then by writing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which specified that “, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

This broad language intentionally included more than just the people who had been freed from slavery at the end of the Civil War: Members of Congress discussed the , like Chinese immigrants and those identified as Gypsies.

Still Barring Some From Citizenship

However, this inclusive view of citizenship still had an area judges hadn’t made clear yet – the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” In 1884, the Supreme Court had to interpret those words when deciding the case of a Native American who wanted to be a citizen, had renounced his tribal membership and attempted to register to vote.

The justices ruled that even though John Elk had been born in the U.S., he was and was therefore – not that of the United States. He was, they ruled, not a citizen.

In 1887, Congress did pass a law for at least some Native Americans; it took until 1924 for to be recognized as citizens.

In 1898, the Supreme Court took up the question in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ultimately ruling that children born in the U.S. were, in the 14th Amendment’s terms, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, so long as their parents were . Therefore, those children . The text of the 14th Amendment also became an issue in the late 19th century, when Congress and the Supreme Court were deciding how to handle immigrants from China. An 1882 law had barred Chinese immigrants living in the U.S. from becoming naturalized citizens. A California circuit court, however, ruled in 1884 that these immigrants’ .

The Long Reach Of Wong Kim Ark

Efforts to grant American Samoans citizenship in the 1930s passed the Senate but failed in the House. In 2018, plaintiffs from American Samoa sued, . They asked a federal judge to decide whether they were covered by the 14th Amendment’s provision that they were born “within” the U.S., and therefore citizens. The judge agreed they were, looking to the Wong Kim Ark ruling as clear guidance that the 14th Amendment follows the .

Since the Wong Kim Ark ruling, birthright citizenship rules haven’t changed much – but they are no less contentious. In 1900 and 1904, leaders of several Pacific islands that make up what is now American Samoa to govern them. These agreements, however, did not grant American Samoans citizenship. A State Department policy designates them as “,” which means they can freely live and work in the U.S., but cannot vote in state and federal elections.

Policymakers and the public remain deeply interested in who gets citizenship and how they get it. President Donald Trump is just the to the fact that Latin American immigrants who come to the U.S. without legal permission can .

Nevertheless, the courts have continued to uphold the centuries-long history of birthright citizenship, dating back to before the Constitution itself and early American court rulings.

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