Trump v. Barbara · ¶68

Of course, domicile was relevant to naturalization and expatriation. But that by no means suggests it was a prerequisite to national citizenship at birth. The principal dissent’s reliance on cases concerning changes to a person’s state citizenship is thus misplaced. See, e.g., post, at 6–7. And the Government’s remaining support for the idea that a domicile “qualification” to birthright citizenship was “widely accepted” in the United States before the Civil War, Brief for Petitioners 22, consists of a single state-court case about citizenship in the Republic of Texas, a proposed (but never adopted) model code for the State of New York, and another treatise that discussed the subject only in terms of “the principles of natural reason,” which it expressly distinguished from “[t]he common law,” 1 H. Tucker, Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia 57–58 (1836).

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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