Citizenship Clause

In the United States, the topic of national citizenship and immigration is a hypersensitive subject for many individuals, with a multitude of extremely polarized opinions on the topic. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States strives to have an outright and distinguished definition of national citizenship, which was subsequently accomplished through the Citizenship Clause. The Citizenship Clause conveys that "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” ("The Constitution of the United States," Amendment Fourteen, Citizenship Clause). Though this is the general law by which citizenship is determined, …show more content…
Morales-Santana submitted an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals, with a presumption that the gender-based differences of this law are in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment or “the constitutional guarantee that no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws that is enjoyed by other persons or other classes…” (“Equal Protection Clause”). Obama administration Attorney General Lynch then filed a writ of certiorari that followed a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stating that this provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 violated the Equal Protections Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the use of intermediate scrutiny, and in order for laws to pass intermediate scrutiny, they must progress some government interest (“Intermediate Scrutiny”). In this case, the overarching government interest is establishing a connection between children who qualify for citizenship and the United States. This writ also questioned whether this lower court decision inadvertently granted citizenship to Morales-Santana without the discrete power to do …show more content…
This clause declares that any citizen of the United States cannot be denied equal protections provided by the established laws of the nation. In this case, as men are not treated as equals in regards to the lengths of time required to be physically present, they are being denied equal treatment under the law, therefore violating the Fourteenth Amendment. Also, denying Morales-Santana citizenship based on this discriminatory practice is in violation of the Fifth Amendment, in which the federal government is not allowed to deny, among many other things, “liberty” without the due process and coverage of the