Melanie
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jumptolane.bsky.social
Melanie
@jumptolane.bsky.social
250 followers 460 following 4 posts
lawyer, avid believer in science and kindness, in los angeles
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Reposted by Melanie
mjsdc.bsky.social
By the end of the ratification debates, everyone understood that the 14th Amendment would grant birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants. The only live question was whether that was a *good* thing. Some senators argued it wasn’t. But they lost! applyliberally.substack.com/p/birthright...
However, the reality - which Justice Horace Gray notes in the Wong Kim Ark decision - was that precisely that debate did arise. During the debate over the ratification of the 14th Amendment in the 39th Congress, it was proposed that the initial clause was unacceptable because it denied states the capacity to deny citizenship either to Chinese or 'Gypsy residents - the unsuitability of both groups described at great length by a Senator Cowan from Pennsylvania. Senator John Conness of California -himself an immigrant from Ireland - replied to this objection that "The proposition before us, I will say, Mr President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States"
December 7, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Melanie
klasfeldreports.com
Sotomayor: "No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. ... Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent."
June 27, 2025 at 2:22 PM