Is America a Country for Americans? The Supreme Court Will Decide
Citizenship must involve complete loyalty to the U.S. or else there is no sovereignty.
Joseph Ford Cotto | February 27, 2026 www.americanthinker.com
Citizenship is not a technicality. It is not a loophole. It is not a prize slipped across a hospital bassinet because geography happened to cooperate. Citizenship is the highest legal bond between an individual and a sovereign nation.
If that bond means anything, it must mean allegiance. That is the principle at the center of President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 14160, signed on Jan. 20, 2025, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.
The order directs federal agencies not to recognize automatic citizenship for certain children born in the United States after Feb. 19, 2025. When the mother was unlawfully present, or present only temporarily, and the father was neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident, the child becomes ineligible for citizenship.
Its rationale is straightforward. The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to those born in the U.S. and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That final clause is not ornamental language. It is a constitutional requirement.
Opponents moved quickly. Lawsuits were filed almost immediately.
Federal district courts issued preliminary injunctions, including a nationwide block from a Maryland judge on Feb. 5, halting enforcement before the policy could take effect. For a time, it appeared that the familiar pattern would repeat itself, executive action frozen by sweeping lower court orders.
Then the Supreme Court intervened in a critical procedural dispute.
On June 27, in Trump v. CASA, the Court ruled 6 to 3 to limit the use of universal injunctions by lower courts, finding no broad historical basis for them in most cases. The justices did not resolve the merits of the birthright citizenship order, but they did something profoundly important. They reaffirmed that nationwide policy questions belong before the Supreme Court itself, not in the hands of a single district judge.
That set the stage for the main event.
On Dec. 5, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Trump v. Barbara, agreeing to hear the constitutional challenge to Executive Order 14160 during its ongoing term, with oral arguments scheduled for April 1, 2026.
The Court deserves enormous credit for taking the case. The country cannot function indefinitely on assumptions about citizenship that were never fully tested against the constitutional text.
The most powerful defense of the order appears in an amicus brief filed Jan. 27, 2026, in support of the petitioners in Supreme Court case No. 25-365. That brief does not rely on rhetoric. It relies on history, statutory development, Supreme Court precedent, and the framers’ own explanations.
Its core argument is simple, yet powerful.
The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” has always meant complete political allegiance, not mere physical presence. English common law shaped that understanding. In Calvin’s Case in 1608, Lord Coke explained that subject status depended on ligeantia, meaning allegiance and obedience to the sovereign, not simply being born within territorial boundaries. Allegiance was reciprocal. Protection flowed from loyalty.
That concept carried into American law.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 declared citizens to be those born in the U.S. and not subject to any foreign power. Sen. Jacob Howard later explained that the Fourteenth Amendment’s jurisdiction language would exclude foreigners, aliens, and the families of ambassadors. Sen. Lyman Trumbull defined jurisdiction as complete jurisdiction, meaning not owing allegiance to anybody else.
These statements were not casual observations. They were explanations of what the Amendment was designed to accomplish.
The post ratification record reinforces the same principle. In the Slaughter House Cases in 1872, the Supreme Court observed that the jurisdiction clause excludes children of ministers and citizens of foreign states born within the U.S. In Elk v. Wilkins in 1884, the Court held that birth within the U.S. was not enough where complete allegiance was lacking.
Citizenship required full political subjection, not partial or divided loyalty.
Opponents point to United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898. But that case involved parents who were lawful permanent residents domiciled in the U.S. with the government’s consent. The Court emphasized lawful residence and the sovereign’s permission. It did not address children born to parents present in violation of federal law.
Extending Wong Kim Ark to that context assumes what must be proven.
Modern courts have read Wong Kim Ark carefully. In Tuaua v. United States, the D.C. Circuit stressed the importance of complete political jurisdiction and direct allegiance. The amicus brief argues that collapsing the distinction between lawful, consent based presence and unlawful presence erases the constitutional requirement of allegiance.
The practical stakes are real.
Jennifer Pak reported that official Chinese estimates placed annual birth tourism numbers in the U.S. at approximately 50,000. Salvatore Babones has estimated figures as high as 100,000 per year. Peter Schweizer has argued that over a decade the number of children born through such practices could range between 750,000 and 1.5 million. China Daily has openly advertised automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment as an incentive for expectant mothers.
These numbers underscore a hard truth. If citizenship attaches automatically without regard to allegiance or lawful status, the incentive structure changes. The Constitution becomes a magnet rather than a covenant. The amicus brief contends that the framers anticipated this danger and wrote the jurisdiction clause to prevent it.
Textual analysis strengthens that case.
The Fourteenth Amendment speaks of being “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” not merely “within the jurisdiction.” That distinction appears elsewhere in the amendment. The difference in phrasing suggests a difference in scope. Total political allegiance is not the same as temporary subjection to local laws.
The brief synthesizes English common law, the drafting history of 1866, early Supreme Court decisions, and modern precedent. It concludes that children born to those who remain under the political allegiance of another sovereign and who entered or stayed unlawfully are not fully subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. in the constitutional sense.
That conclusion is not radical. It is anchored in text and history. It respects Congress’s role in naturalization. It restores meaning to words too long treated as surplus.
If the Supreme Court upholds Executive Order 14160, thereby clarifying the Fourteenth Amendment, the decision will resonate far beyond immigration policy. It will affirm that citizenship is defined by constitutional principle, not by gaming the system. It will elevate the value of American citizenship by tying it unmistakably to allegiance and consent. It will limit the ability of foreign interests and unlawful entrants to manufacture status through geography alone.
Most importantly, it will return control over America herself to the proper American people and their Constitution. In an era when sovereignty is often treated as an inconvenience, such a ruling would declare that the bond of citizenship still matters, still carries weight, and still demands loyalty.
That is not exclusion. That is self-government.
If citizenship can be claimed without allegiance, then sovereignty becomes a suggestion and the Constitution a relic. This case forces a choice between sentiment and structure, between drift and definition. The amicus brief proves that the Fourteenth Amendment demands loyalty, not opportunism.
Should the Court affirm that truth, it will not merely decide a policy dispute. It will decide whether U.S. citizenship is sacredly reserved for Americans themselves, or formalized as a valuable commodity for alien birth tourists.
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