Tennessee and 24 States Unite in Supreme Court Case Challenging Birthright Citizenship

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has aligned with Iowa and 23 other states to submit a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, advocating for a reevaluation of the constitutional interpretation of birthright citizenship.

This coalition has presented a 30-page amicus brief, arguing that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment — which declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens — has been overly broadly interpreted.

The states assert that automatic citizenship should be granted only to children whose parents are legally present in the country and owe their allegiance to the United States.

“The notion that everyone born in the United States is automatically guaranteed citizenship does not align with the original language of the Fourteenth Amendment, nor with the understanding held by many government officials and legal scholars at the time it was enacted post-Civil War,” Skrmetti explained in a statement.

The brief references historical documents from the Reconstruction era to the early 20th century, arguing that lawmakers then connected citizenship to the domicile and legal status of parents. It also questions the precedent set by the longstanding interpretation of the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which involved a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents living in the U.S. and has been the basis for current birthright citizenship practices.

“I have not seen a case of that before Wong Kim Ark or after in which a person had been denied citizenship based on the fact that their parents did not have a legal presence or as Skrmetti or others are arguing that they were not intending to be permanent residence and therefore lacked allegiance to the United States,” Jim Holton, a lecturer at Middle Tennessee State University, said.

Tennessee is joined by states including Florida, Georgia, Texas and Missouri, to name some. They argue the Supreme Court should clarify who qualifies for automatic citizenship under the Constitution.

“The Supreme Court in deciding that case very firmly stated that his own parentage did not matter that all that mattered was that Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States, and he owed his allegiance to the United States from the very beginning,” Holton said. “I think it’s very remarkable because at that point, Chinese immigrants were not allowed to become citizens, all Asian immigrants were not allowed to become citizens.”

It’s unclear how this would play out if overturned. Some questions have arisen about whether the government would have to verify parental status for every birth or potentially create a class of people born in the U.S. without any citizenship anywhere.

“That is a fear that somebody could be stateless or a second-class citizen, which this country has traditionally, something which this country never had to encounter,” said Bill Gerstein, an immigration attorney at Gerstein & Gerstein.

Skrmetti is expected to discuss Tennessee’s role in the filing in the coming days.