High court won’t hear dispute over birthright citizenship

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a group of American Samoans seeking to be recognized as U.S. citizens.

The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that said the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship does not extend to the U.S. territory that has been a part of the USA since 1900.

The American Samoan group turned to the Supreme Court after U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2015 upheld a federal district court opinion that birthright citizenship under the Constitution doesn’t apply to American Samoans. Instead, the islands' citizens are recognized in federal law as “non-citizen nationals.”

Nationals are allowed to work and live anywhere in the United States, but unlike citizens, they can’t vote or hold elective office.

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The original federal court decision, issued in 2013, noted that for Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, birthright citizenship has been statutory. If the Constitution’s citizenship clause were guaranteed at birth, the statutes giving the other territories birthright citizenship “would have been unnecessary.”

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.
— U.S. Constitution, 14th Amendment, Section 1

The plaintiffs argue that because the Constitution states all people born in the U.S. are guaranteed citizenship, this applies to the people born in American Samoa.

A small group of American Samoans, who did not have the support of the islands’ government officials, filed the lawsuit. The government of American Samoa has argued that automatic U.S. citizenship could undermine local traditions and practices, including rules that restrict land ownership to those of Samoan ancestry.

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The Obama administration also weighed in against the challengers, saying the issue should be decided by Congress if the elected government of American Samoa changes its position.

About 56,000 people live in American Samoa. People born there who want full citizenship must leave the territory and live in a U.S. state for at least three months to apply for naturalization. Many complain that the inconvenience and expense of the process deters them from pursuing citizenship.

The lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, Leneuoti Tuaua, said he wanted to become a law enforcement officer in California but couldn’t because he isn’t a citizen.

Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Jasmine Stole on Twitter: @StoleJasmine