By: Eric Wessan | The Federalist
Sen. Jim Banks has offered a text-and-precedent-bound response to a decision his opponents assumed had ended the debate.
When the Supreme Court decided Trump v. Barbara on June 30, 2026, opponents of birthplace-citizenship reform declared the fight over. But that disappointing decision was not the end of attempts to reform the system. It was merely the “end of the beginning.” Sen. Jim Banks read Barbara as a legislative map. His new Citizenship Act follows the road Wong Kim Ark charted.
Barbara held that President Trump’s executive order was unconstitutional by locking in birthplace citizenship’s definition from a much older case. That 1898 case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, laid out three categories of people whose children are not automatically citizens even if born on American soil. Barbara held the executive order was unconstitutional for going outside those three categories. But within those three categories, any needed fix need only be by statute. That means Congress can pass a fix.
Banks could have taken the easy way out, either reading Barbara as a loss or arguing any fix must be constitutional — and thus impossible in today’s polarized age. Instead, he took the harder path: legislating within the four corners of precedent. If the Supreme Court says birthplace citizenship is governed by Wong Kim Ark, then Wong Kim Ark’s own exceptions are fair game.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate opinion explaining that while he agreed with the majority’s result, it would not require a constitutional amendment to change the law to deny birthplace citizenship to more people than just the three categories flagged in Wong Kim Ark. This law fits within Kavanaugh’s conception — and may be enough to pull another justice from the majority, too.
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