July 3, 2026 - Poll: 29% Open to Democratic Socialist

Birthright Citizenship: The Law Is Settled. The Question Isn't.

In 2008, I spoke at a naturalization ceremony. People from some 30 countries, all in one room, all there by choice. I told them the all-American job was mine - the talk show host - not for what I do, but for where I get to do it. I closed by telling them they had "just joined the membership ranks to the greatest country ever created."

Membership. That word stayed with me this week.

The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship - but by a single vote, 5-4. Roberts got the law right. Trump's order couldn't survive the 14th Amendment, and it shouldn't have.

But look at that margin. The coverage treated this as a slam dunk - obvious, settled, case closed. If it were that easy, it wouldn't have drawn four dissents. The Court itself couldn't agree the answer was simple. Which is my whole point: right on the law, and more complicated than the pundits have let on.

Because the Constitution tells us what the rule is. It doesn't tell us whether the rule is wise. And we've stopped asking the second question.

So ask it. Why should the accident of geography decide the most valuable membership on earth? We have a cottage industry built on the answer - birth tourism, where the whole point is to secure a passport and go home. Most of the world doesn't invite that. Britain ended birthright citizenship. Ireland ended it by popular vote. Justice Alito, in dissent, argued citizenship should belong to those who "owe allegiance solely to this country." Not soil. Allegiance.

Now, someone will say: you benefited from an accident too. You're a citizen by blood, not soil - luck either way. Fair. But not every accident is equal. I was born into an existing relationship - parents already inside this country, already taxed, already governed, already here for good. I inherited a bond that started before me and continued after. Soil captures a single moment: where you happened to be delivered. Blood captures a connection that was always going to bind you to this place. Same luck, very different stake. The question was never whether I earned mine. It's which rule better tracks a real tie to the country - a family already rooted here, or a set of coordinates on a map.

The people I spoke to in 2008 answered a harder version of that test. They waited years. Learned the country. Took an oath. They chose us - out loud, on the record. Compare that to simply being born here. No test. No oath. No choice.

Questioning this isn't closing the door. That door stays wide open. It's asking whether becoming an American should mean more than where your mother happened to be standing - mine included.

The law tells us what we must do. Not what we should.

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