Justice Jackson Suggests Foreign Tourists Qualify for Birthright Citizenship Because They Have ‘Local Allegiance’ to U.S. While on Vacation

During oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made her case for why the children of foreign tourists ought to qualify for birthright American citizenship if they are born in the United States while their parents are on vacation.

The case, known as Trump v. Barbara, will decide whether or not President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens and foreign tourists, often referred to as “anchor babies,” is constitutional.

During an exchange with the ACLU’s Cecillia Wang, who is arguing that the order is unconstitutional, Jackson seemingly made a case for why birthright citizenship should extend to foreigners who just so happen to be on vacation in the United States at the time their child is born.

“I was thinking about this and I think there are various sources that say this, that you can have — you obviously have permanent allegiance based on being born in whatever country you’re from, that’s what everyone recognizes,” Jackson said. “But you also have local allegiance when you are on the soil of this other sovereign.”

She continued:

And I was thinking, I, U.S. citizen, am visiting Japan and what it means is that, if I steal someone’s wallet in Japan, the Japanese authorities can arrest me and prosecute me. It’s allegiance meaning, can they control you as a matter of law? I can also rely on them if my wallet is stolen to under Japanese law go and prosecute the person who has stolen it. So there’s this relationship, even though I’m a temporary traveler, I’m just on vacation in Japan, I’m still locally owing allegiance in that sense.

Annually, an estimated quarter of a million anchor babies are born to illegal aliens and foreign tourists in the United States. The Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on the issue. Many leading legal scholars dispute the idea that offering birthright citizenship to such foreign nationals was the intention of the 14th Amendment.