Trump v. Barbara · ¶460
In addition, one of the chief reasons for the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment was to prevent the CRA from being held unconstitutional. (President Johnson had cited the unconstitutionality of the CRA as one of the reasons why he vetoed it. See Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 1680 (1866).) If the CRA had granted birthright citizenship to persons who were not entitled to citizenship by birth under the Fourteenth Amendment, there would still have been doubts about the CRA’s constitutionality. So at a minimum, the Fourteenth Amendment’s text had to be at least as generous as its CRA counterpart. Moreover, following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress reenacted the CRA in 1870. 16 Stat. 144. That reenactment would have been pointless if the CRA’s test for birthright citizenship were less generous than the Fourteenth Amendment’s. For all these reasons, it is…Read in context ›
slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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