OPINION: AG Labrador strikes out with 'birthright citizen” case
The seeds of a major embarrassment for Idaho’s Attorney General were planted on January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump issued an unconstitutional executive order regarding “birthright citizenship.” The order purported to deny citizenship to children born in America to parents who were not U.S. citizens. From the very beginning of our nation, it was understood that all babies born on American soil were automatically citizens, except for children born to foreign diplomatic families. The concept was called “birthright citizenship.” It was an essential cornerstone for the growth of our country.
After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment became the law of the land. It reaffirmed citizenship by right of birth and ensured that the right extended to formerly enslaved African Americans. The Citizenship Clause of the Amendment reads: “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.” It is important to note that foreign diplomats are not subject to US jurisdiction, so their children are not entitled to birthright citizenship.
A presidential executive order cannot change the law of the land, so a number of persons brought suits challenging Trump’s order. Four federal district courts ruled against his order. The matter then arrived on the doorstep of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) for a definitive ruling.
Last November, Attorney General Labrador proudly announced that he was joining 23 other GOP Attorneys General, urging SCOTUS to get rid of birthright citizenship. That was fine since we expect politicians to do silly things to get votes.
But when Labrador announced on March 31 of this year that his nonsensical position was “Idaho’s constitutional position” on the birthright citizenship issue, he went too far. He was saying, in essence, that all Idahoans should be tarred by his frivolous argument that babies born on U.S. soil are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction and not automatically U.S. citizens. It does not take a law degree to understand that almost every baby birthed on American soil is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. They are born under the protection of our laws, regardless of who their parents are.
Labrador’s argument against citizenship as a right of birth was even too much for the Trump-friendly SCOTUS majority to swallow. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the birthright citizenship decision, completely repudiating the position that our Attorney General had represented to SCOTUS as “Idaho’s constitutional position.” SCOTUS ruled that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the country are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
In his March 31 announcement, Labrador said he’d “agreed…for a while” that birthright citizenship was the “settled law" of the country. His radical change of position was likely dictated by his need to follow the MAGA herd for political reasons. We should expect our Attorney General to observe and respect the rule of law, instead of bending to the whims of politics. The best way to avert being embarrassed in a high-profile case, is to have the law on your side. Labrador’s political posturing proved to be a poor substitute for a well-reasoned case.
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Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served 8 years as Idaho Attorney General (1983-1991) and 12 years as Justice of the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He also publishes at substack.com/@jjcommontater.