The Dictatorship

The Supreme Court just fumbled a basic question about birthright citizenship

Published

12 months ago

June 28, 2025

The Supreme Court just fumbled a basic question about birthright citizenship

If you arose Friday morning thinking the U.S. Supreme Court would finally settle the question of birthright citizenship, you were disappointed. We know no more now than we did Thursday about how Chief Justice John Roberts’ court regards children born here: The liberal three-justice minority is certain all are citizens, while the conservative six-person majority remained mum. That conservative majority avoided addressing the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship and chose instead to reject so-called “universal injunctions” blocking his executive order.

All we learned Friday is that a final resolution to the question of birthright citizenship is somewhere in the distance.

All we learned Friday is that a final resolution to the question of birthright citizenship is somewhere in the distance, beyond many more rounds of court proceedings.

For families directly targeted by Trump’s Jan. 20 executive orderwhich aims to bar children born to nonpermanent residents from automatic citizenship, too little has changed. Such families — and especially their yet-to-be born children — remain in the crosshairs of a dispute that will continue unresolved at least for months to come. Going forward, such families will be subjected to harrowing circumstances, not knowing where they stand before the court and the Constitution.

By some accounts, we are five months into this era of uncertainty regarding citizenship. But we have endured years, decades, even centuries of confusion about citizenship.

We know that Trump intended to do away with birthright citizenship seven years ago, even though details were lacking. Consult the Congressional Record, and you’ll discover that the language in Trump’s executive order is similar to the language of bills that have been put forward every session since at least 2003. Scour law review articles and you’ll learn that as far back as the 1980s, some legal scholars have promoted the view that children of noncitizens born in the U.S. cannot be birthright citizens.

This longer view of the dispute over birthright citizenship helps explain why we, in this moment, feel so worn down by the evasion that is Friday’s Supreme Court decision. How long should Americans, especially children born in this country and their families, be expected to endure such indecision, confusion and uncertainty?

Perhaps we should not be surprised to find Roberts’ 21st century court fumbling the birthright citizenship question. Indeed, the origins of birthright citizenship in the United States are in the ignoble ineptitude of lawmakers two centuries ago. In early America, free Black Americans, nonimmigrants, were a despised group, and they were regularly confronted by those who argued that they were not citizens and thus had no rights before the courts or the Constitution.

It was a harrowing existence. In the nation’s early years, the American Colonization Society organized to press free Black Americans to leave the country, to places such as the West African colony of Liberia. The ACS outfitted ships, funded travel and encouraged Black Americans to self-deport, all to preserve the U.S. as a white man’s country. State lawmakers and local officials played their part, enacting so-called Black laws that constrained everyday life — where they worked and worshipped, how they traveled and raised their children — all to further encourage free Black Americans to leave.

Were free Black Americans citizens? They believed so and looked to the terms of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for authority. All men were created equal, they insisted. The Constitution recognized birthright citizenship and drew no color line, they urged. Today, we can read their ideas in early American newspapers, pamphlets and books. They are to be credited with promoting the terms of their own belonging, and those of all persons born in the United States. Their rallying cry: Citizenship in the U.S. was the result of birth, no more and no less.

Early American lawmakers failed Black Americans, leaving them to make families, lives and communities in the face of profound uncertainty.

Early American lawmakers failed Black Americans, leaving them to make families, lives and communities in the face of profound uncertainty. For example, in 1821, when Congress considered admitting Missouri into the Union, lawmakers asked whether Black Americans would have the right to enter the new state. Only if they were citizens, it was said, and a debate ensued with representatives taking both sides. The result was a twisted injustice: Congress never firmly answer the question and instead admitted Missouri while leaving Black Americans mired in ambiguity.

Also in 1821, U.S. Attorney General William Wirt was asked to resolve whether a free Black man could command a ship in Virginia’s coastal waters. The law provided that he could only if he were a citizen. Thus, Wirt was charged with solving the riddle of Black citizenship. But he did not. Instead, he reached a twisted conclusion: In Virginia, a free Black man could not be a citizen, but in another state he perhaps could. Once again, Black Americans were left to make lives under murky circumstances.

Notoriously, in the 1857 Dred Scott casethe U.S. Supreme Court concluded that no Black American could be a citizen. Or at least this is how the story is often told. A closer look reveals that the nation’s high court was deeply divided in that instance. Justice Roger Taney was sure that Black Americans were not birthright citizens. Still, his fellow jurists, Associate Justices Benjamin Curtis and John McLean, took the opposite view. Birthright, they concluded, was the law of the land and, absent a color bar in the Constitution, Black Americans, like their white counterparts, were citizens. The high court failed to settle much at all. Black Americans might be citizens to some, but to others they were subject to Black laws and colonization.

It would take a Civil War and a remaking of the Constitution during Reconstruction to settle debates over Black citizenship. The 14th Amendment constitutionalized the birthright principle that Black Americans had long championed. Along the way, Black Americans learned hard lessons, and so should we. The nation’s founding documents can be subjected to interpretation and reinterpretation in the hands of lawmakers, courts and the executive branch. Those designated as despised can be variously regarded as citizens and noncitizens, while lawmakers fumble and fail to settle the debate.

Those designated as despised can be variously regarded as citizens and noncitizens, while lawmakers fumble and fail to settle the debate

Most of all, by recalling the struggles of Black Americans for birthright citizenship, we better understand that uncertainty before the law is its own form of inhumanity. Being the object of debate is its own sort of harrowing existence. In early America, Black Americans made homes, raised children, established businesses and built a political culture — all the while facing down efforts to banish, exile or otherwise remove them from the nation. We rightly admire their courage and persistence. At the same time, we can recognize the price they paid for being subject to the deliberations of lawmakers who avoided, sidestepped, punted and otherwise refused to settle their status as birthright citizens.

Friday, the nation’s high court fumbled. Rather than affirm the birthright principleit put that question off for another day. In the months ahead, there will be briefs filed and arguments presented. At the same time, there will also be harrowing days ahead for immigrant Americans and their children, people who urgently await a determination of their standing as birthright citizens before the Constitution.

As a nation, we owe them at least that.

Martha S. Jones

Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni President Professor and Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University. She is author of the prize-winning “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Race in Antebellum American” (2018, Cambridge University Press.) She is also the author of an amici cruise brief on the subject of birthright citizenship along with historian Kate Masur.

The Dictatorship

National Guard and Park Police patrol as coating peels…

Published

23 minutes ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

National Guard and Park Police patrol as coating peels…

WASHINGTON (AP) — National Guard members and U.S. Park Police patrolled the deck around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday as President Donald Trump’s administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.

The patrols came two days after Trump said authorities had made “multiple arrests” of people he insisted were responsible for damage to the peeling coating after an algae bloom occurred. The liner was installed as part of his $14 million-plus project.

The president has confirmed the problems most likely require draining the pool again for liner repairs and he promised a quick fix. Without offering substantiation, he also said vandals dumped fertilizer in the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter.

But the timeline was not clear Monday, with the White House saying damaged areas are still being assessed. Contractors and federal workers in recent days have been using chemicals and ozone nanobubbles to combat the algae.

Trump pitched the original improvements as intended to clean, beautify and reinforce an iconic site that he said had become dilapidated and dirty because of previous presidents’ neglect. Algae has plagued the pool for a century, and Trump insisted that a newly installed “American flag blue” coating, which he selected himself, would turn the pool into a gleaming expanse along the National Mall.

Yet within weeks of Trump declaring the rehabilitation completed in time for Independence Day, the water was plagued by a vivid green algae bloom that clouded the pool’s coating. A piece of liner, about 4 square feet, was observed Friday partially floating in the pool. The Associated Press saw additional pieces in the water Monday.

Via social media, the president has blamed the problems on “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE!” He asserted Monday on Truth Social that intentional damages include a “300 foot long gash” and that “chemicals have been illegally placed in the water.” A day earlier, Trump posted, “Work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized Reflecting Pool.”

At an executive order signing on Monday, the president said five people had been arrested and five more were under suspicion, and he deflected blame for the pool’s maintenance issues: “I can’t help it if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it up.” He has not backed up those claims, and even if anyone has deliberately peeled or cut the lining, that would not explain the algae bloom that appeared more intensely than what typically occurred before the renovation.

Images showing that Trump’s project apparently backfired boomeranged across social media last week, drawing crowds of onlookers eager to see the effects themselves. An unknown number ended up being detained by federal authorities.

One man arrested was David Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland. A former Olympic canoe racer, Hearn told The Associated Press that he reached into the pool because he wanted to examine the peeling new coating. He said he briefly touched a chunk that was still attached to the side of the pool, then let go shortly after a park worker told him to. Hearn said he was then detained by National Guard troops and Park Police for five hours before being released Friday night.

“I’m a curious citizen,” Hearn said in a telephone interview. “I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery.”

The Park Police did not immediately respond Monday to AP’s questions about how many arrests were made and whether any charges had been filed. Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said Monday that the agency is not involved.

The White House said Monday that any arrests have been made only by the U.S. Park Police.

It was not immediately apparent what criminal or civil violation someone might commit reaching into the pool. Trump, in one of his Truth Social posts, cited laws against defacing monuments as grounds for imprisoning anyone harming the pool.

___

Barrow reported from Atlanta. Katie Vogel contributed reporting from Washington.

The Dictatorship

8 convicted in Texas immigration center shooting sentenced to decades in prison

Published

18 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

8 convicted in Texas immigration center shooting sentenced to decades in prison

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Eight protesters accused by the Justice Department of having ties to antifawere sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison over a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center that wounded a police officer. Prosecutors have called the shooting an act of terrorism.

One of the defendants, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist convicted of opening fire during the July 4 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, was sentenced to 100 years in prison, the maximum punishment.

The lengthy sentences were condemned by family members and supporters in a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. Hope Song, whose son Benjamin Songreceived the heftiest sentence, disputed prosecutors’ claims that her son shot the officer and said he didn’t intend to hurt anyone.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, one of two judges overseeing the proceedings, said what happened wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.”

“The need to deter this type of conduct is high,” O’Connor said.

The seven other protesters received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.

Prosecutors said the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization and a targetof the Trump administration. Antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.

The defendants deny any affiliation with antifa and maintain they attended the demonstration in support of detained immigrants.

Prosecutor Frank Gatto urged the judge to impose stiff penalties.

“People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison,” Gatto said. “They believe violence is justified.”

Phillip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the courthouse that he takes issue with the idea that the protesters are extremists.

“This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Hayes said. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”

Prosecutors said in court that Song had yelled “get to the rifles” and opened fire, striking a police officer who had just pulled up to the center.

Hayes argued that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer after he arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. He said his client will appeal the 100-year sentence.

“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”

Other defendants and their family members pleaded for leniency in court.

Autumn Hill said the gathering “seemed more like a party to me than anything else” and that she and others who participated “didn’t expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur.”

Amber Lowrey told the judge that her sister, Savanna Batten, is a compassionate person with dreams of opening a bakery. She said Batten’s activism started with animal rights and evolved into anti-war and human rights advocacy.

“She’s the best person I know,” Lowrey said.

Hill and Batten both received 50-year sentences.

Other defendants previously pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.

Critics warn the case could have a wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.

Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 peoplewith impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdownin Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.

The Dictatorship

Tulsi Gabbard and Senate GOP face difficult new questions over influence of her ‘guru’

Published

18 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Tulsi Gabbard and Senate GOP face difficult new questions over influence of her ‘guru’

About a month into Donald Trump’s second term, Senate Republicans weighed whether to confirm one of the president’s worst nominees. Indeed, the list of reasons to reject Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence was not short.

The former congresswoman lacked the requisite experience in intelligence matters. She had an indefensible habit of echoing Russian propaganda. She struggled to explain her record of defending Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. Senators heard from former national security officials who issued unsubtle warnings about elevating Gabbard to an important and influential position.

But in case that weren’t quite enough, let’s also not overlook the fact that Gabbard was a member of a secretive Hare Krishna offshoot religious sect that is considered by many of its former members to be an abusive cult.

Gabbard, who wrapped up her tenure as DNI last week, has long insisted that any suggestion that she was somehow enthralled to or controlled by this sect or its leader, whom she has referred to as her “guru,” is just bigotry against her faith.

But it’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post obtained hundreds of secret memos prepared for Gabbard during her congressional tenure, which were put together by members of the alleged cult and which included thousands of pages of specific directives to her on policy and politics.

After careful analysis of thousands of these documents, which have not been independently verified by MS NOW, the Post determined that they likely came from Gabbard’s secretive guru, a man named Chris Butler.

The memos, starting in 2013, when the Hawaiian first arrived on Capitol Hill, reflect a dynamic in which Gabbard didn’t just take direction from the materials, but essentially took dictation from the alleged cult leader: Memos told Gabbard what she should do as a member of Congress, and she often did exactly that, sometimes word for word.

The Post’s Jon Swaine spent months trying to get Gabbard to respond to questions, but to no avail. Her spokeswoman reportedly encouraged Swaine to drop the story, saying, “I cannot imagine WaPo’s readers would be interested in yet another uncredible, bigoted attack on the DNI’s faith.”

On May 20, Swaine nevertheless alerted the DNI and top members of her staff to the fact that the Post was prepared to publish his reporting anyway on her association with Butler.

On May 22, Fox News reported that Gabbard was leaving the administration, ostensibly because of a health issue involving her husband.

This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor and commented on the reporting:

There are reports that Tulsi Gabbard was receiving instructions from a so-called guru and repeating them word for word. That ought to concern all of us if it’s true. No one knows who this guru really is, what his connections are, and where the instructions came from. … We need answers.

The New York Democrat’s comments made sense, though it’s worth considering who, exactly, “we need answers” from.

It stands to reason, for example, that Gabbard has some explaining to do, but I’m also interested in the answers from those who elevated her to an influential intelligence office in the first place.

In February 2025, confronted with an avalanche of reasons to reject Gabbard’s nomination, 52 Senate Republicans — every GOP member except Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell — shrugged off every red flag and voted to confirm her as the nation’s DNI, including so-called “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.

The question for these 52 senators seems obvious: Do you regret that confirmation vote and now recognize it as a mistake? Or do you still think it was a good idea to put Gabbard in this influential intelligence position?

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”