A series of controversial early 20th-century Supreme Court rulings known as the “Insular Cases” will remain intact after justices declined to consider whether American Samoans have full U.S. citizenship at birth.
The high court’s denial was written without any noted explanation or dissent, meaning fewer than four voted to hear the appeal in the case Fitisemanu v. U.S. The lawsuit was petitioned to the justices by a group of American Samoans, challenging a slate of early 20th-century decisions that held people born in American Samoa and other unincorporated U.S. territories lack entitlement to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
Challengers of the early 1900s case won their litigation battle at a lower court level in 2019, which prompted the U.S. government to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TELLS SUPREME COURT TO PASS ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP CASE
A three-judge panel on the appeals court held the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was ambiguous on the issue of American Samoans’ birthright citizenship but ruled the Insular Cases were still settled law despite acknowledging that they may have been decided on racist and bigoted prejudice.
President Joe Biden’s Justice Department asked the high court in August to avoid taking up the Fitisemanu case, arguing that while the government “in no way relies on the indefensible and discredited aspects of the Insular Cases’ reasoning and rhetoric … This case would be an unsuitable vehicle for reexamining those cases,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said at the time.
Meanwhile, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor, who represent opposing ends of the court’s ideological spectrum, have voiced issues with the 20th-century rulings.
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“[The Insular Cases] were premised on beliefs both odious and wrong,” Sotomayor wrote in a dissent in U.S. v. Vaello Madero, a case decided in April that ruled Puerto Rican residents can be excluded from benefits under a federal insurance program known as Supplemental Security Income.
Gorsuch voted to uphold the denial of SSI benefits to Puerto Rican residents but said the so-called “Insular Cases” that guided the decision “have no foundation in the Constitution,” going as far as to say they “rest on racial stereotypes.”
