Thanks for the detailed answer, I think that'll be a relief for many. However, would you say this still is a volatile situation for people who are facing this issue? Are the rulings _final_ on this? Or is there chance of people getting stuck in limbo?
> Thanks for the detailed answer, I think that'll be a relief for many. However, would you say this still is a volatile situation for people who are facing this issue? Are the rulings _final_ on this? Or is there chance of people getting stuck in limbo?
No, rulings are not final. SCOTUS could and very well may disagree with more than a hundred years of jurisprudence and overrule e.g. US v. Wong Kim Ark[1], enabling much easier denaturalization by the federal government. Here's an example article from a right-wing think tank about why they believe SCOTUS should overrule Ark[2].
That seems like a very good demonstration of the pitfalls of originalist interpretations of the Constitution. Even then, the argument comes off as extremely weak. And it doesn't even begin to try and address the consequences of reinterpreting the meaning of "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof".
Are conservatives envisioning a new class of slaves? People born on US soil who have none of the protections of the Constitution? Even if that is not the goal, it's not hard to imagine that there would be far-reaching consequences from deciding that the Constitution was not a limit on the behavior of government, but in fact only applied to citizens. What a massive bump in power for the bureaucrats in DC.
Heck, we could just snatch people off the street and declare they cannot prove they are a citizen therefore they have no Constitutional protections. No right to due process so they can prove they're a citizen, nothing like that. Better plan on carrying your passport at all times (and hope it doesn't get ... lost).
> Heck, we could just snatch people off the street and declare they cannot prove they are a citizen therefore they have no Constitutional protections.
I'm not sure if you intended this as a joke, but this is happening now, even if you do have proof of citizenship on you[1]:
> Congressman Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, reported that “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a “definitive” determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate” when the app says a person is undocumented.
