Even top legal officials decline to defend long-settled birthright citizenship

Evidence

Today, some U.S. lawmakers charge that birthright citizenship is an arbitrary or excessive principle by which to define national belonging. The House of Representatives, in each session since 2007, has introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act, a law that would exclude the U.S.–born children of undocumented immigrants from birthright’s protections. In 2018, then-president Donald Trump declared his intent to do away with birthright, though the means by which he would do so were never fully disclosed. Remarkably, figures as highly placed as former U.S. attorney general William Barr and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, when questioned, have declined to express views about the legal parameters of birthright citizenship despite the principle having been law for more than 150 years. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 690

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why would Barr and Barrett decline to express views on a settled constitutional principle — is this legal caution or political hedging?