Justice Jackson’s Birthright Citizenship Comments Were a Total Disaster
2nd April 2026
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson turned Wednesday’s Supreme Court birthright citizenship oral arguments into another demonstration of her lack of qualifications for sitting on the high court.
The case centers on President Trump’s executive order challenging the automatic grant of citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents. It was, on paper, one of the most consequential constitutional arguments in decades. For Jackson, it became a showcase of creative — if baffling — jurisprudence.
Speaking to ACLU attorney Cecillia Wang, Jackson offered an extremely bizarre take on allegiance to a nation.
“I was thinking, you know … I, a U.S. citizen, am visiting Japan. And what it means is that, you know, if I steal someone’s wallet in Japan, the Japanese authorities can arrest me and prosecute me. It’s allegiance, meaning, can they control you as a matter of law?” She continued: “I can also rely on them if my wallet is stolen, to, you know, under Japanese law, go and prosecute the person who has stolen it.” Then the kicker: “So there’s this relationship based on — even though I’m a temporary traveler, I’m just on vacation in Japan, I’m still locally owing allegiance in that sense. Is that the right way to think about it?”
What Jackson described isn’t allegiance in any constitutional, historical, or even pedestrian sense of the word. It’s basic jurisdictional law – the notion that when you’re in a foreign country, local law applies to you. That has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause, which turns on political allegiance and sovereign obligation, not tourism logistics.