Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to “every free-born person in this land.” We keep that promise today.
— Chief Justice John Roberts, concluding his majority opinion in Trump v. Barbara, where the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order which sought to end birthright citizenship. Roberts wrote that “children born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States” “satisfy both elements of the Citizenship Clause,” and therefore, “[u]nder the Constitution, they are citizens at birth.”
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.