You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Cappadice. Today we are revisiting a topic that is at top of mind right now, as on his first day in office, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order titled, quote, protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship.

End quote.

This order is designed to overturn the 14th Amendment to the Constitution,

which guarantees birthright citizenship.

The relevant part of the 14th Amendment, by the way, says, quote, 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.

Now, we will be doing an episode on executive orders.

We're going to do another on birthright citizenship explicitly, and we're working on one

about constitutional crises.

So, stay tuned for those. But today, we are looking back at a critical moment in the history

of birthright citizenship. It is the landmark Supreme Court case from 1898 that cemented

the interpretation of the 14th Amendment as we understand it today.

The case also determined the fate of the man at its center, Wong Kim Ark.

This episode was produced back in 2020 by Felix Poon, who is now a producer on the NHPR

podcast Outside In, but at the time, he was an intern with us here on

Civics 101. With all the developing news around this executive order, including the many,

many lawsuits that have already been filed to stop it, I'm not going to say the exact number here

because it's likely to have increased in the time between me saying

these words and them getting to your ears. It seemed like a good time to replay this episode.

Because it provides some understanding of the rights held by the people born in this country

and how the Supreme Court has, at least in the past, affirm those rights.

So, without further ado, here's the episode.

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