Things to Read This Week (2/23/26)
The latest word on the birthright citizenship revisionists
Just one thing this week but it’s important:
Birthright Citizenship Re-Examined, by Michael Ramsey. This is a big one. So far the best thing I have read about the current debates and the closest to my views. The piece is especially valuable for explaining in detail the difference between Lash’s arguments and Wurman’s, which are quite different in ways I have not seen discussed. Also very valuable for explaining how 80% of Wurman’s analysis can be correct and yet lead to the opposite of the conclusion he advocates.
My Youngstown piece is held up by the (new?) SSRN review process so you’ll have to wait a bit for that one.
Looks like the Youngstown piece is approved now, thanks SSRN!
Wow, I've never seen any law review articles taken apart quite as effectively and completely as Ramsey does. That's some scorched earth, go home and think about a new line of work level rebuttal.
I mean the example of children born in the south during the civil war is brilliant and neither view has a good answer. But most damning is the point that, it's hard to understand how someone who shows up and is allowed to live as a lawful resident -- explicitly reserving their home country allegiance and perhaps even intending to return -- somehow qualifies as having allegiance to or subject to the complete jurisdiction of the US but yet someone who enters the US illegally with the intention to abandon their home country and live in the US permanently does not.
Usually the law isn't this cut and dried but here you basically have a proof you can't make the other readings work. You can't both insist that the children of criminals, even those in active rebellion against the government, qualify for citizenship as do lawful aliens but not unlawful ones.