Donahue on a Temporal Framework for Birthright Citizenship

Joseph Donahue (Idam05) has posted The Historical Record Supports a Temporal Framework: A Response to Estreicher and Reddy on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

This response to Estreicher and Reddy’s Addressing Some Perceived Anomalies (Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y Per Curiam, May 8, 2026) makes one focused argument: the State Department cases they surface are better explained by a temporal allegiance-transition framework than by their formal allegiance conclusion. When the State Department adjudicated citizenship claims in the decades following ratification, it asked how long and how committed, not what visa. It asked the temporal question because the temporal question was the only constitutionally available question. That framework resolves the central originalist objection Justice Gorsuch pressed at oral argument in Trump v. Barbara: it requires no backdating of modern immigration categories into an 1868 constitutional text, and it protects long-term residents constitutionally rather than through equitable estoppel.

Recommended!

To receive new posts from Legal Theory Blog by email, get a free subscription to Legal Theory Stack.

Lawrence Solum