Gap Undermines Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Plan

New York Times: “The court will hear arguments in the spring to decide whether that is right. There are many tools for assessing the original meaning of a constitutional provision, including the congressional and public debates that surrounded its adoption.”

“But one important tool has been overlooked in determining the meaning of this amendment: the actions that were taken — and not taken — to challenge the qualifications of members of Congress, who must be citizens, around the time the amendment was ratified.”

“A new study to be published next month in The Georgetown Law Journal Online fills that gap. It examined the backgrounds of the 584 members who served in Congress from 1865 to 1871 and found good reason to think that more than a dozen of them might not have been citizens under Mr. Trump’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment. But no one thought to file a challenge to their qualifications.”