OPINION: The recurring issue of ‘who is a citizen in America’

By Ivory Phillips

JA Contributing Editor

It ought to be clear from reading the U.S. Constitution just who is and is not a citizen of the United States of America. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution plainly states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” That Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, 158 years ago this week. Nevertheless, the matter keeps cropping up as an issue.

It emerged as a major issue following the Dred Scott decision of 1857, wherein Dred Scott, along with other enslaved and free Black residents, were declared to not be citizens. To remedy that problem, following the American victory in the Civil War, Congress proposed, and along with the citizens of the various states, ratified the above cited Fourteenth Amendment. The new Amendment enabled all persons born in this country to be recognized as citizens. This means African and Native American people who had been born here, but up to that time were merely residents, were recognized as citizens. The Amendment also enabled immigrants who became naturalized to be declared citizens.

It is important to note the definition of citizen and the rights and immunities inherent in citizenship had not been described elsewhere in the Constitution. Many states, in the meantime, had restricted voting to adult males who owned a certain amount of property. Because of such impediments, the Fourteenth Amendment was written to include a provision stating that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States . . .”

It is important to also consider that, like many other issues, the matter of citizenship seemly has a way of historically recurring or repeating itself. Consider, for example, after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, granting citizenship to African people in America, many southern and border states passed Jim Crow laws, making African people second class citizens. These laws were widely upheld, based upon the Supreme Court decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson of 1896. Such laws remained in effect until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954, when the Supreme Court re-visited the provision of the Amendment stating “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

To say the matter of citizenship has been a recurring issue is a gross understatement. America’s history is riddled with examples of how the ancestors of the so-called Make America Great Again crowd have based the idea of American citizenship on a racial/ethnic foundation in order to deprive African, Asian, Arabic, Native American, Latina, Pacific Island, and even some European people of their full citizenship rights. (The matter of such people becoming naturalized citizens is another story of its own, encompassing how they have been exploited, imprisoned, abused, and turned away, and even being shipped to other countries after being labelled criminals.)

Historically, each time a non-white group has found a way to assert its rights as citizens, the dominant group has found other ways to keep them as second class citizens – which is a misnomer since one either is or is not a citizen. Therefore, the issue of who is a citizen recurs because White Supremacists are bent on declaring themselves the only legitimate Americans; that they had and continue to have the right and the power to take the land of the Native people and to force African people to develop it into an economy of their liking, without having to share the wealth, much less compensate either group for its years of blood, sweat, and tears.

With that said, one can expect to see the wealthy and powerful class looking for ways to deny full citizenship rights to those who are not their kind. The tendency toward selfish greed and egotism are ever prevalent and growing. Even as we speak, the Trump administration seeks to overturn the idea of birthright citizenship. It is looking for any loopholes in any legislation that Congress has passed to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. If found, the Trump administration will utilize these loopholes to again attack constitutionally guaranteed American citizenship. 

Finally, we are certain that it escapes no one that it has generally been the wealthy and powerful who have sought to restrict who is considered an American citizen. Considering the very nature of the country’s existence, being or becoming American should be open to all. Legitimate democracy demands that the question of American citizenship need go no further as an issue.