Trump v. Barbara · ¶341

Congressional practice supports the same conclusion. “[E]arly congressional enactments provide contemporaneous and weighty evidence of the Constitution’s meaning.” Utah v. Evans, 536 U. S. 452, 503 (2002) (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Congress could have enacted a statute that referred to the Court’s three categories of exceptions. Instead, in 1870, the Reconstruction Congress reenacted the Civil Rights Act, which expressly excluded all persons “subject to any foreign power.” 16 Stat. 144 (reenacting Act of Apr. 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27). Once again, a foreigner who was not domiciled here remained subject to a foreign power—namely, his home country. See Part I–B–2, supra. Nobody in Congress, as far as I am aware, argued that this exclusionary language violated the Citizenship Clause.

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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