Writing for a divided panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, Judge Carlos Lucero\u00a0ruled\u00a0that the U.S. Constitution provides no guarantee of citizenship to people born in U.S. territories, reversing a 2019 district court decision\u00a0holding\u00a0that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment applied in states and territories alike. <\/p>\n
Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich wrote a short separate concurrence. <\/p>\n
Judge Robert Bacharach wrote a 55-page dissent, setting forth how the Constitution\u2019s text, purpose, and history all \u201cunambiguously\u201d support recognizing that the Constitution\u2019s guarantee of birthright citizenship extends to people born in U.S. territories.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are disappointed, and frankly surprised, by this result. Last year the Supreme Court made clear that the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0should not be expanded beyond their limited scope, yet here the 10th Circuit did just that to deny the right of citizenship to people born in U.S. territories,\u201d said Neil Weare, president and founder of\u00a0Equally American, which advocates for equal rights in U.S. territories and serves as co-counsel to the\u00a0Fitisemanu\u00a0plaintiffs. \u201cWe are considering our options moving forward in light of the 10th Circuit\u2019s decision to ignore the Supreme Court\u2019s recent guidance narrowing the application of the\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0in U.S. territories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last June, in response to calls to overrule the\u00a0Insular Cases, the U.S. Supreme Court\u00a0stated\u00a0in upholding the constitutionality of the Puerto Rico Oversight Board that \u201cthe\u00a0Insular Cases\u00a0should not be further extended,\u201d questioning their \u201ccontinued validity\u201d and calling them \u201cmuch-criticized.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 10th Circuit\u2019s majority opinion fundamentally misunderstands the historical record when it comes to questions of citizenship in American Samoa,\u201d said Charles Ala\u2019ilima, an American Samoan attorney who serves as co-counsel to the\u00a0Fitisemanu\u00a0plaintiffs. \u201cIt is not that American Samoans have a \u2018preference against citizenship,\u2019 or that citizenship is \u2018not wanted\u2019\u2014I take [American Samoa Delegate Uifa\u2019atali] Amata and the government of American Samoa to simply be arguing that the question of citizenship should be decided by Congress, not recognized as a constitutional right. Indeed, American Samoa\u2019s traditional leaders believed they became citizens the moment they transferred sovereignty to the United States through the Deeds of Cession in 1900 and 1904. When the United States informed our traditional leaders in the 1920s that citizenship was being withheld from American Samoans, they fought for decades to be recognized as full U.S. citizens, only to be repeatedly denied by Congress because of racism and opposition from the U.S. Navy. Today, concerns about U.S. citizenship in American Samoa largely turn on fears that it would threaten the preservation of our land and culture or limit self-determination, but these fears, as explained in Judge Bacharach\u2019s dissent and by other legal experts, are simply not supported by relevant legal precedent or the historical experience of other territories.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of next steps, the\u00a0Fitisemanu\u00a0plaintiffs have 45 days to consider making a request for review of the panel\u2019s decision by the full 10th Circuit, a process known as \u201cen banc\u201d review, or 90 days to consider seeking review from the U.S. Supreme Court, a process known as a petition for\u00a0certiorari. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writing for a divided panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":331088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[320],"class_list":["post-346247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}