Ketanji Brown Jackson accused Thomas of complying with the Dred Scott decision
NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
On Tuesday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused Justice Clarence Thomas of echoing “one of the founding principles of Dred Scott” in opposing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the right to birthright citizenship.
In Jackson’s concurrence with the majority opinion in Trump v. Barbara, argued that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was historically intended to apply to all people born in the United States, including children of illegal immigrants, contrary to Thomas’ position that the amendment was specifically enacted to provide citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War.
“Freed Blacks fought for the shared humanity of all people. And the Great Emancipator finally foresaw that the only way forward that could prevent a return – in any form – to slavery and racially based subjugation was to unite the destinies of all,” wrote Jackson. “Yes, the irony is that in all the talk about the despicable Dred Scott decision, Govt [Thomas] suggest a return to its core mission. The bottom line for them is that, for some people, being born on American soil will not be enough to grant citizenship. “
Invoking “Dred Scott,” Jackson refers to an 1857 Supreme Court decision in which the majority said that people of African descent “are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the term ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and therefore cannot claim any of the rights and privileges that that instrument provides and protects for citizens of the United States.”
CHINA USES ‘BIRTH TOURISM’ TO ACHIEVE LONG-TERM DIPLOMATIC LAW, AUTHOR WARNS.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman on the nation’s highest court, speaks at the 60th Anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing on Sept.15, 2023, in Birmingham, Alabama. (Butch Dill – Pool/Getty Images)
According to Thomas, however, Jackson’s universal interpretation of the historical context surrounding the 14th amendment was unfounded.
“After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Congress overruled Dred Scott, first with the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and then with the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Thomas wrote. “Both the Civil Rights Act and the Citizenship Act guaranteed citizenship to people born and living in the United States regardless of their race. It did not guarantee citizenship to people who were not in the United States.”
HAWAII GUN LAW LAWYER CALLS GOVERNMENT’S RELIANCE ON CODE BLACK ‘SHADOWING’
People protest outside the US Supreme Court before the arrival of US President Donald Trump expected on April 01, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara to decide whether President Trump’s executive order ending the right to birthright is constitutional. According to historians and the Court, this is the first time that a sitting president has attended oral arguments at the nation’s highest court. (Al Drago/Getty Images)
Thomas went on to explain the differences he believes exist between black Americans and immigrants living in this country.
“Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans. They had no other country, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority,” the justice continued. “The same cannot be said about the children of temporary foreign visitors. Temporary foreign visitors were attached to their country, they did not have the same relationship with this country, and they would not be called during the war.”
SUPREME COURT’S OPINION ON BIRTH AGENCY DECISION COULD SET AMERICA AROUND
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks during a special address commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence at Hogg Memorial Auditorium at the University of Texas on Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Thomas argued that citizenship under the 14th amendment required birth in the United States and “domicile,” a legal concept he defined as one’s physical home and one’s permanent allegiance to the country. Children of temporary foreign visitors, according to Thomas, are not eligible because, although they are subject to US laws while they are here, they remain in the custody of another state and are not “fully subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in the constitutional sense.
Jackson pushed back against this line of thinking, calling it “myopic.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS PROGRAM
“Despite his long-standing endorsement of a ‘blind-sided’ Constitution, Justice Thomas now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a form of racial reform, relevant only to ‘freed slaves like Dred Scott,'” he wrote. “It is for this reason, he says, ‘the children who were born in the United States [to parents] those who do not live here’ have no right to claim birthright. But that narrow view of the Fourteenth Amendment has little to do with the history of its ratification. Worse, Justice Thomas’s telling underscores the entire point of the Second Amendment. “
“The Reconstruction Amendments were an anticaste, antisubordination reset of the Nation, not just a treatment of the black stain of slavery,” Jackson asserted.
