Welcome to Rightly Decided, where the litigators of the Texas Public Policy Foundation bring you mostly originalist takes and zero media hysteria. In this episode, Laura Beth Latimer is joined by Nathan Seltzer, Clayton Calvin, and Litigation Director Chance Weldon to cut through the noise on the massive end-of-term SCOTUS drop: Trump v. Barbara.
It’s time for a legal play-by-play of the 5-4 (or 6-3, or 7-2…it’s complicated) ruling affirming birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants and temporary visitors. We leave the policy preferences at the door and dive straight into the text, the history, and the court’s six separate opinions.
In this episode:
- The Majority (Chief Justice Roberts): An originalist defense relying on English common law, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the heavyweight precedent of Wong Kim Ark.
- The Concurrences: Justice Jackson’s historical lens on Black citizenship, plus Justice Kavanaugh’s argument that the Court could have bypassed the Constitution entirely and just used the 1952 Immigration Act.
- The Dissents (Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito): A deep dive into the “domicile” test, the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” and Alito’s spicy pushback on American consent versus British subjecthood. Plus, we flag a major tactical warning on the decline of facial challenges.
Whether you’re celebrating or seething over the outcome, put down the Twitter hot takes and join us to take look at what the Court actually said.