Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#521

Post by superultra » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 3:56 AM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #469

dgellow wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in the process of building a new country little by little. Eventually they will openly dismiss the US constitution. Things are really, really bad. We are pretty much in US‘s Weimar period. The fact all of that was predictable makes it just so frustrating to see it play out in real time

> hey are in the process of building a new country little by little. Eventually they will openly dismiss the US constitution. Things are really, really bad. We are pretty much in US‘s Weimar period. Why the scaremongering? What are "they" waiting for?

Surely we’re aware of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 yes? It spells out exactly what they are doing, & where they are going.

Eliminating birthright citizenship is a key component dating back decades.

https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/report/feudalism-c...

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#522

Post by skulk » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #62

consensus1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many of those countries have an illegal immigration problem? I bet that most of them would quickly remove that loophole if people actually started to exploit it.

Root cause it. The USA does not have an illegal immigration problem. It has a "huge, slow immigration bureaucracy" problem that makes the legal path so slow and difficult that people are incentivized to gamble on illegal paths.

Not even this. The USA has a labor shortage that is filled by workers who used to migrate seasonally until it was no longer allowed, thus creating a perverse system that encouraged business owners to look the other way and immigrants to stay instead of leave.

A long time ago, the southwestern part of the USA was Mexico, but a certain destiny manifested itself and changed that. It seems like this didn't affect day-to-day life due to a generous treaty for a while until some Americans decided they deserved the land there more than the people who were there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation#Cession_o... -- see the part about 1930 removals.

Obviously, the people who were kicked out were performing some useful economic function, so the USA decided to have it both ways: The Bracero program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program

This program of importing cheap labor had an expiration date, and it was allowed to expire in the 60s. Guess what happened then?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9017686/

> Despite the forced removal of Mexicans during the 1930s, as soon as the United States entered the Second World War, authorities approached Mexico to negotiate a binational treaty that arranged for the annual entry of legal workers for seasonal labor in U.S. agriculture (Galarza 1964; Calavita 1992). The resulting Bracero Program lasted from 1942 through 1964, and its effect on the likelihood of migration is readily apparent in Figure 3. Between 1940 and 1945 the probability of U.S. migration rose nearly seven times, going from 0.003 to 0.020 before leveling off briefly and then rising to new plateau of 0.029 from 1956 to 1959. In 1960 Congress began to phase out the Bracero Program, finally letting it expire at the end of 1964, bringing the probability of migration down to 0.017.

Why did they let it expire? presumably to increase demand for American labor. A laudable goal to be sure, but is that really what happened? Surely people stopped crossing the border to do labor here and Americans started getting hired more.

This whole thing is beyond messed up and the fact that this history is essentially erased (I wasn't taught this in school) absolutely boils my blood.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#523

Post by MisterMower » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

wat10000 wrote: post #509

MisterMower wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a country extending citizenship to a whole group of people for no reason other than the location of their birth, and then allowing said people to access the benefits of citizenship, including the ability to receive welfare benefits, vote, and run for office.

Seems to work fine. Dozens of countries do this. It's not some weird hypothetical nor is the US some bizarre outlier.

The fact that a guy like Trump was ever elected in the first place would imply it is not working fine. Half of the electorate supports his anti-immigration policies. In an alternate universe where immigration laws were properly enforced he may never have been elected.

Further, just because something has never been an issue in the past doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future. The US is an outlier in being the only large and wealthy country that does this. Not many people are flying to Pakistan to give birth to secure Pakistani citizenship for their children.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#524

Post by skulk » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #506

cosmicgadget wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that sufficient reason to overturn a constitutional amendment by executive order?

No, the EO is dogshit malpractice of executive power. And the amendment is effectively impossible to amend in this day and age. We are stuck with birthright citizenship. Realistically the only option we have that might work is shit-canning most welfare and incentives for non-productive immigrants to enter and make it pointless to pop out the kid unless you have a plan to make both them and yourselves productive membe…

> congress during some fluke period when the filabuster can be overcome.

If the clouds part and Jesus himself descended from the heavens, you'd ask him to ... discourage anchor babies? Surely there are better and more pressing uses of his power.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#525

Post by mothballed » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:12 AM UTC

cosmicgadget wrote: post #520

mothballed wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the EO is dogshit malpractice of executive power. And the amendment is effectively impossible to amend in this day and age. We are stuck with birthright citizenship. Realistically the only option we have that might work is shit-canning most welfare and incentives for non-productive immigrants to enter and make it pointless to pop out the kid unless you have a plan to make both them and yourselves productive membe…

The GOP would never do that because so much of their base milks the same entitlements. Might have to find a different solution.

I don't think we'll find a solution then. We'll argue about it until another country finds the solution for us in the form of superior economic success and then the illegal immigrants will start the cycle over there. Shit-canning welfare might be the easiest way to get rid of non-productive illegal immigrants but shit-canning your entire economy works to get rid of all new immigration and then it's not a concern anymore.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#526

Post by mothballed » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:16 AM UTC

skulk wrote: post #524

mothballed wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the EO is dogshit malpractice of executive power. And the amendment is effectively impossible to amend in this day and age. We are stuck with birthright citizenship. Realistically the only option we have that might work is shit-canning most welfare and incentives for non-productive immigrants to enter and make it pointless to pop out the kid unless you have a plan to make both them and yourselves productive membe…

> congress during some fluke period when the filabuster can be overcome. If the clouds part and Jesus himself descended from the heavens, you'd ask him to ... discourage anchor babies? Surely there are better and more pressing uses of his power.

If you're asking me personally, on this topic? Wide open borders, not even a wall, zero employment eligibility checks, but no welfare. Only way to win is to also benefit others in voluntary trade or seek voluntary charity. I have no problem with "illegal" immigrants, only those who purposefully target and drain the coffers of Americans by popping in for a citizen-baby and then run every public benefit available with their anchor baby.

Part of the reason why immigrants were so successful and beneficial in the 1870-1920 era boom was that labor was so badly needed in the burgeoning age of industry. But really, the other half is there was no other option -- you did something productive or you were completely fucked.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#527

Post by qingcharles » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:47 AM UTC

lazide wrote: post #452

semiquaver wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no practical way to ever update the Bill of Rights in the 21st century What on earth do you mean? The practical way is the same as it always was: subsequent amendment. The fact that it requires consensus is a feature. This reads the same way as people who say things like “we just have to accept that Congress is broken and can’t pass new legislation.” Like hell we do!

They mean ‘have you seen congress? Good luck’, not that the mechanism is mechanically harder to use.

This. Getting enough states to agree on a change would be a fool's errand I think. It seems like the reds and blues can't agree on anything at all any longer.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#528

Post by AngryData » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:11 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #285

deep_concern wrote: post #280

If you shift from being a living constitutionalist to a strict textualist based on the case in question, then what you really are is a machiavellian.

Kavanaugh's dissent is kinda hilarious in this context. > The original constitutional principles do not change absent a constitutional amendment, but the relevant principles— both the rules and exceptions alike—must be faithfully applied not only to circumstances as they existed in 1787, 1791, and 1868, for example, but also to modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution’s Framers. This,…

Fully automatic guns maybe not, but the founding fathers definitely knew about repeating firearms, they had more than a few offers to purchase them, both for military uses and as private citizens. They just denied to because it was expensive to purchase and maintain.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#529

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:12 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #334

monocularvision wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How doesn’t include machine guns?

Keep reading! > In Second Amendment cases, this Court applies the Amendment to semi-automatic handguns even though those did not exist in 1791 or 1868. "Shall not be infringed" apparently applies to unimaginably better weaponry, but they couldn't have anticipated immigrants being pregnant.

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#530

Post by TimorousBestie » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:12 AM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #484

rayiner wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not seriously contested anymore. Originalism won and now we are just fighting about how to apply it.

This is obviously not true. Everyone always wants to say "my ideology is right and this is not contested anymore" and everyone is always wrong about that.

Insofar as originalism did “win,” it was only as a convenient signal to Mitch Mcconnell that a potential appointee would play ball.

As an academic legal theory it’s entirely sterile. There’s little actual content within it and it demonstrates almost no consistent application of its supposed principles. When it ceases to deliver conservatives relatively painless victories, they’ll move on to something else.