Does the Fourteenth Amendment Guarantee Birthright Citizenship? [POLICYbrief]
Short video featuring John Yoo and John Eastman
Short video featuring John Yoo and John Eastman
What does the text of the Constitution say about United States citizenship? Does the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee citizenship to anyone born in the US? Arguing both sides of the birthright citizenship issue are Professor John Yoo of UC Berkeley School of Law and Professor John Eastman of Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law.
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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.
Learn more about John Yoo:
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-profiles/john-yoo/
Learn more about John Eastman:
https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/john-eastman
Related links:
Debating Birthright Citizenship - Two Perspectives
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/blog-posts/podcast-debating-birthright-citizenship-two-perspectives
How to Think about Birthright Citizenship
https://www.claremont.org/featured/the-14th-amendment-immigration-and-citizenship/
Settled Law: Birthright Citizenship and the 14th Amendment
https://americanmind.org/features/the-case-against-birthright-citizenship/settled-law-birthright-citizenship-and-the-14th-amendment/
Is Birthright Citizenship Destined for the Supreme Court?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sue-REjGXo0
Trump Says He is Seriously Looking at Ending Birthright Citizenship
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump/trump-says-he-is-seriously-looking-at-ending-birthright-citizenship-idUSKCN1VB21B
Differing views:
What is birthright citizenship -- and can Donald Trump get rid of it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2jzABGerpM
The US Needs to Eliminate Birthright Citizenship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfKKtU1LgDk
The Fight for Birthright Citizenship in America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=788If50vyYU
What is Birthright Citizenship?
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/11/02/what-is-birthright-citizenship
9 Things to Know about Birthright Citizenship
https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/9-things-know-about-birthright-citizenship
Why the United States Has Birthright Citizenship
https://www.history.com/news/birthright-citizenship-history-united-states
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.