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Comment by newaccount670 | Hacker News Reader

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Idk if it's a "truly insane policy", but these are the rules of the game, and there is a procedure in place for changing the rules of the game.

Maybe so, but it isn't any of the Supreme Court's business. The 14th amendment is very clear. And yep, if you don't like that amendment, you're free to advocate for a new amendment that says something different.

Why do people act like the sky is suddenly falling when the Court just keeps things as they have been for two and a half centuries?

Maybe not that long, but at least as long as 90 years. Thomas cites examples of people being denied citizenship by the executive branch, but in almost all cases they did not sue and just accepted the denial.

one and a half, but sure

The 14th Amendment was largely codifying how things had been done before, plus insisting that, yes, it also applies to black people.

It wasn't up to the Supreme Court to correct. It is very plainly written in the constitution. Sure you can disagree, but it is up to elected representatives in Congress to amend, not Trump or the Supreme Court.

It's not a "policy" it's a constitutional right.

We can collect income tax from children of tourists who happen to be born in the US on vacation? Great!

Why is it insane?

Some woman who is 8 months pregnant comes to the US on a tourist visa and gives birth, then goes home with the baby. And then somehow that kid gets automatic US citizenship. And it applies even if the mother is not even legally allowed in the country. And you think that is not insane?

I don't think it's a "problem" that justifies taking the rights away from millions of Americans, no.

An 8 months pregnant woman would typically be denied entry during immigration processing. It doesn't seem like a big deal.

And that's assuming they can even board their flight. Airlines don't really like carrying extremely pregnant people because it's very risky.

> And you think that is not insane?

I think there would be a real problem with creating a class of people who live here their entire lives and aren't citizens. And then their children also live here and aren't citizens, and their grandchildren, etc.

It's not that birthright citizenship is ideal, but it prevents some other, bigger problems.

Why is it a problem to have US citizens being raised elsewhere? What bad thing is being caused by this?

It’s no skin off my back. Why should I give a shit?

I'm not him, but it creates some perverse incentives (like chinese billionaires who pay american surrogates to get implanted with dozens of their kids who get american citizenship).

https://fortune.com/article/chinese-billionaire-xu-bo-father... might be an outlier, but it's still weird, especially since the US is the only country that has this.

> especially since the US is the only country that has this

I see this said in real life as well, but it's just false. Plenty of countries in North America do this, including Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli#North_America

> Canada: Subsection 3(2) of the Citizenship Act states that Canadian citizenship by birth in Canada – including Canadian airspace and territorial waters – is granted to a child born in Canada even if neither parent was a Canadian citizen or permanent resident except if either parent was a diplomat, in service to a diplomat, or employed by an international agency of equal status to a diplomat. However, if neither parent was a diplomat, the nationality or immigration status of the parents does not matter.

> especially since the US is the only country that has this.

Except it's not.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/31/us-style-...

It's a minority of countries that have rules like the US, but the US is not unique in this regard and there's no reason to keep repeating that lie.

This doesn't seem like a major problem. Immigration officials are already sensitive to birth-tourism and have had discretion to deny entry to obviously pregnant tourists even long before Trump.

Beyond that, if you're a billionaire you can just fast track a path to citizenship with a gold card.

You're saying billionaires are deliberately hanging American taxation of worldwide income around their kids necks?

Chinese billionaires are bound to do weird shit. I don't think we should amend our constitution to try to prevent that.

If the problem is 'birth tourism' and subsequent immigration visas for relatives of the US national child, changing the immigration policies seems like a better fix. Something like requiring a sponsoring citizen to reside in the US for a period before sponsorship. A citizen sponsoring a visa for a parent already has to be 21.

I'm not sure I can be that upset by people who want to immigrate, so they put a plan in motion that takes 21+ years to reach fruition. Although that does jump the line if you were eligible for F3 or F4 and your country of origin is Mexico... the priority date on those is currently 2001. [1]

I want more people in the US who can do long term planning, not less. :p

[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

Truly insane that this is one of the most important founding aspects of the country. Without which most, if not all, the population wouldn't legally be allowed to live here. But yet, you don't understand that.

Most Americans conveniently forget the whole "nation of immigrants" thing once they are a few generations removed from the situation. Ladder kickers the lot of them.

I’m curious why you believe an amendment will help your situation.

This case (placed alongside many others in recent memory) demonstrates that no matter how clear and unequivocal a legal text you write, the textualists can find a way to overturn it.

So what specific legal text for this amendment of yours do you believe is immune from that degree of sophistry?

Yep. Could not be more disappointed in Gorsuch here. What is the point of writing things down in the Constitution if Justices are just going to vote for their preferred ideology and come up with embarrassingly thin justifications for whatever they think the document should say?

The number of times this happens in a year is negligible. It’s also quite difficult to do it safely: airlines won’t allow you to fly when heavily pregnant, and emergency deliveries are incredibly expensive due to the American healthcare system.

So you are suggesting abrogating rights based on an event that occurs with minuscule probability. Get a grip.

Agreed, especially when the “vacation” is actually birth tourism and the mother lied at the border.

How many folks "on the right" would be willing to use similar logic to nullify amendments they tend to like?

E.G.: "US guns are stolen and exported to foreign gangs. Therefore, the text of the 2nd Amendment is entirely null and void and should be 'corrected' by the Supreme Court"

It is not be the job of the Supreme Court to "correct" Constitutional amendments!

the fact that birth tourism is a thing means the demand for us citizenship is way higher than supply, to the point people are willing to put their whole life savings and break the law just to have a shot at getting it through a complicated family route.

its easy to fix by making legal immigration cheap and reliable. its also great for the economy, a lot of undocumented immigrants work illegally dont pay taxes because they cant work normal jobs without getting deported.

legalizing their stay means more tax revenue, less crime and labor violations, lower costs for business and i would also say its kind of morally wrong for a rich country to buy cheap stuff made by workers in mexico or china and give none of the profits back. closed borders are glboal injustice.

If you would like a carve out for this, that may well be reasonable policy, and you should feel free to advocate for an amendment to the current text.

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