Janai Nelson: Congress ‘Won’t Succeed’ in Restricting Birthright Citizenship Because It Would Be ‘Unlawful’

RUSH EXCERPT:

NELSON: “Well, reverend, we should be deeply alarmed that this was not a nine zero slam dunk decision by this court. The fact that the margin was just one vote away from rewriting the 14th Amendment, a key provision, a foundational, clear provision of the 14th Amendment should give us great pause. We know that we have interpreted the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause the same way for well over a century, and the fact that a Supreme Court justice could write a decision, as Justice Thomas did, a 91 page screed against the 14th Amendment, a reconstruction amendment that was meant to ensure the birthright citizenship not only of people who were formerly enslaved, but of all people. Because, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said, that provision is an anti-caste anti subordination clause in the Constitution. It’s meant to put everyone who is born on U.S. soil on equal footing. So the fact that there are four justices, three who are adamantly opposed to it, and one who left an opening for Congress to try to continue to foment this division in our society, although they won’t succeed because it’s unlawful."