{"id":4894,"date":"2026-05-08T16:27:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T20:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/?p=4894"},"modified":"2026-05-08T16:27:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T20:27:49","slug":"addressing-some-perceived-anomalies-referenced-in-the-trump-v-barbara-oral-argument-samuel-estreicher-rudra-reddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/addressing-some-perceived-anomalies-referenced-in-the-trump-v-barbara-oral-argument-samuel-estreicher-rudra-reddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Addressing Some Perceived Anomalies Referenced in the\u00a0Trump v. Barbara\u00a0Oral Argument\u00a0\u2013 Samuel Estreicher & Rudra Reddy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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We have written previously of our disagreement with the conventional (or expansive) view that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment automatically grants U.S. citizenship, without need for naturalization, to children born here of parents unlawfully in the country or here as visitors. See generally<\/em>\u00a0 Samuel Estreicher & Rudra Reddy,\u00a0Revisiting the Scope of Constitutional Birthright Citizenship<\/em>, 24\u00a0Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol\u2019y\u00a0(forthcoming Summer 2026).\u00a0President Trump\u2019s executive order on birthright citizenship has it right as a constitutional matter. We also agree with the President than any change has to be prospective only and ground this claim on estoppel principles in view of the many years of State Department statements repeating the conventional view\u00a0and also on implications of the Supreme Court\u2019s 1976 decision in\u00a0Afroyim v. Rusk<\/em>,\u00a0that citizenship once obtained cannot be relinquished involuntarily or impliedly. We write here only to address certain perceived anomalies noted by some the Justices during the oral argument in\u00a0Trump v. Barbara<\/em>\u00a0in the hope that it will help the Court\u2019s deliberations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We write here only to address certain perceived anomalies noted by some the Justices during the oral argument in\u00a0Trump v. Barbara\u00a0in the hope that it will help the Court\u2019s deliberations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72],"tags":[146,13,27],"class_list":["post-4894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-per-curiam","tag-birthright-citizenship","tag-constitutional-law","tag-fourteenth-amendment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZSiL-1gW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}