Excerpt:

What American Exceptionalism Really Means

There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it: American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free, is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the West, is why children in faraway lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here.

And yet the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.

For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshipping the wrong gods, angering the wrong people. It sent peasants and serfs from slums and shtetls who were treated as less because they hardly owned clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants for whom power was something someone else had.

We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that work endures and it belongs to us all.

It belongs too to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel, the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means.

The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin.

 

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Neil Gorsuch, argues in Trump v Barbara the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship not to everyone born on American soil, but to persons born here who are also domiciled here—that is, whose permanent legal home is the United States.

Thomas begins with Dred Scott v. Sandford. That decision denied citizenship to Black Americans by treating them as an inferior caste. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause overturned that result. In Thomas’s account, they did so because formerly enslaved people were Americans: they lived here permanently, owed allegiance to no foreign country, and were subject to the full authority of the United States. The Reconstruction Congress eliminated race as a barrier to citizenship; it did not, he says, establish citizenship for children whose parents were merely visiting or remained legally attached to another nation.

The organizing concept in Thomas’s dissent is domicile, meaning a person’s legal home and intended permanent residence. Nineteenth-century American law treated citizenship and domicile as closely related. Domicile determined national character, allegiance, taxation, the law governing personal affairs, military obligations, and the government entitled to protect a person abroad. Minor children ordinarily inherited their parents’ domicile. A temporary visitor therefore remained subject primarily to the visitor’s home country, even while required to obey American laws during the visit.

Thomas reads the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment together. The 1866 Act declared citizens those born in the United States and “not subject to any foreign power.” The Citizenship Clause soon afterward covered persons born here and “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Thomas argues that the phrases conveyed the same requirement: full and complete jurisdiction, not merely the territorial authority to enforce criminal and civil laws. He relies on statements by Senators Lyman Trumbull and Jacob Howard and Representative John Bingham, who described citizenship as excluding temporary residents and persons owing allegiance elsewhere. The treatment of tribal Indians reinforces his reading: although born within American territory, members of sovereign tribes were initially excluded because the United States did not exercise complete jurisdiction over them.

Thomas also invokes early governmental practice. Congress reenacted the Civil Rights Act’s “not subject to any foreign power” language in 1870. Executive officials repeatedly denied citizenship to children born here while their families remained domiciled abroad. Early Supreme Court opinions, including the Slaughter-House Cases and Elk v. Wilkins, spoke of complete political jurisdiction and freedom from foreign allegiance. Legal scholars likewise distinguished permanently domiciled immigrants from transient visitors. Thomas considers this evidence far stronger than the majority’s historical account.

He rejects the majority’s reliance on three authorities. Calvin’s Case, a 1608 English decision, rested on perpetual feudal allegiance to the sovereign; Thomas argues that Americans rejected, rather than adopted, that conception. Lynch v. Clarke, an 1844 New York inheritance decision supporting broad territorial birthright citizenship, was an isolated lower-court ruling, rarely mentioned during Reconstruction and later undermined by New York precedent. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, he says, held only that a child born to parents permanently domiciled in the United States was a citizen. Because Wong’s parents were settled residents rather than temporary visitors, broader language in the opinion was dicta and does not decide the present question.

Thomas adds three procedural objections. The certified class includes unidentified persons extending indefinitely into the future, raising standing problems. Neither the Citizenship Clause nor the immigration statute expressly creates a cause of action, and the plaintiffs challenged no final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act. Most importantly, the plaintiffs brought a facial challenge, which requires proving that the order has no lawful application. Yet Thomas believes it is constitutional as applied to children of lawful temporary visitors and at least some undocumented immigrants who are not domiciled here. He leaves open whether children of long-term undocumented residents may acquire American domicile, saying that issue should be resolved through individual, as-applied cases.

Finally, Thomas argues that the citizenship statute did not broaden the Constitution when Congress codified nationality law in 1940; it merely adopted the Citizenship Clause’s language. He closes on a historical note. The Fourteenth Amendment was designed to secure equal citizenship for freed Black Americans. By transforming it into a guarantee for every child of a temporary visitor, “birth tourist,” or undocumented immigrant, the majority, in his view, detaches citizenship from permanent membership, allegiance, and national belonging—and thereby diminishes the “dignity and glory” of American citizenship.

After a surge of voting for Trump, Hispanic voters continue to pull back their support.

In November, 2025, I wrote that in the 2024 presidential election that the American Electorate Voter Poll put Trump’s support among Latino men at 43%. The Navigator Research post-election survey said received 50% of Hispanic men. According to Edison Research, 38% of Hispanic women voted for Trump in 2024, up from 30% in 2020.

Now, in June 2026, according to Reuters/Ipsos (access behind paywall) 27% of Latino voters approve of Trump, down from 36% at the beginning of his second term. An April/May poll Trump’s performance was approved by 30% and disapproved by 67% (UnidosUS/BSP also behind paywall).

The size of the eligible to vote Hispanic population grows 3% a year, while the white eligible population is slightly declining. But Hispanic propensity to vote in much less. 40% of Hispanics get around to register vs 55% for whites. And the voting rate for elderly American is around 80%.

A study of human service workforce in Massachusetts, Stretched to Capacity, highlights the vulnerability of human service organizations to immigration cutbacks. The human services workforce is about 150,000.  These workers staff assistance to families, disabled, aged, homeless, limited functioning, impaired, residential program clients, and other populations.They comprise about a quarter of the state’s entire healthcare sector workforce.

Those workers in direct daily care earn $20-$30 an hour. Many work part time. Some services are dependent on Haitian Temporary Protected Status workers.

It appears that a quarter of these workers are foreign-born.   The study did not differentiate among long time legal residents, TPS  / Humanitarian Parole workers, and unauthorized workers.

Excerpts:

“The reliance on Haitian TPS workers varies significantly across the human services system; providers offering residential supports, personal care, or in-home services tend to employ larger numbers of TPS workers, while others may rely on them far less.”

“A large human services organization in Massachusetts recently experienced significant disruption as changes in federal immigration and work-authorization policies led to the loss of 50 employees whose legal status could no longer be maintained. As policies shifted and automatic work authorization extensions were eliminated, the organization found itself confronting sudden and substantial staffing losses that threatened the stability of its programs and services. Furthermore, the organization anticipates losing up to 25 additional staff if the TPS is rescinded.”

Haitians and Temporary Protected Status, since 1970. A program coming apart at the seams now.

Temporary Protected Status law enacted in 1970

The law: “The government may, under section 244A(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, protect from deportation and authorize to work person who are affected by an ongoing armed conflict; environmental disaster; or “extraordinary and temporary conditions” — any of which prevents nationals from returning safely, unless allowing them to remain in the United States would be “contrary to the national interest.” The immediate beneficiaries were Salvadorean escaping civil wat.

Designation of Haitians for TPS

January 21, 2010, based on an earthquake on January 12. The designation was renewed in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2016. The first Trump administration sought to terminate the designation starting in 2017. This termination was blocked by courts.  In 2021, in the Biden administration the made a brand new designation on the grounds of economic and social breakdown. This was extended in 2013 due to ““economic, security, political, and health crises.” (Go here.)

Some 330,000 Haitians were covered by TPS in 2025, out of the total od 1.2 million. (The largest represented country was Venezuela, at 600,000.)

Trump II termination

The Trump administration sought almost immediately to terminate TPS for Haitians, but was blocked by courts from doing so until the last Biden extensions expired in February 2026.

Secretary of Homeland Security Noam tweeted on December 1, 2025, to over 14 million views: “I just met with the President. I  am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.  Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom—not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS. WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.”

Termination for Haiti

The program for Haitians was terminated on February 3, 2026.

Justification by DHS: “Based on the Department’s review, the Secretary has determined that there are no extraordinary and temporary conditions…. Moreover, even if the Department found that there existed conditions that were extraordinary and temporary….termination of Temporary Protected Status of Haiti is still required because it is contrary to the national interest of the United States to permit Haitian nationals…. to remain temporarily in the United States……”

Regarding “national interest,” Noam cited, among other factors,  criminal gang membership, national security, migration factors, adverse effects on U.S. workers, and impact on U.S. communities.  Noam cited Executive Order 14161 “Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,”’

Supreme Court decision, June 25 2026

By a vote of 6-3 in Mullin v. Doe, the Supreme Court overruled rulings by federal courts in Washington, D.C., and New York regarding TPS, for Haiti and Syria. The majority ruled that the federal law creating the TPS program bars courts from reviewing the determinations by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent: Haitian and Syrian TPS beneficiaries “ask for only one thing: that they may stay in this country while they continue to litigate their claims. … [T]hey are entitled to that relief, and should not instead be consigned to devastating, and indeed life-threatening, injury.”

The Mullin v Doe decision effectively closes the door on termination of TPS for the 600,000 Venezuelans, in October, 2026, barring a Hail Mary legal success by opponents.

The White House website engages in a zenophobic tirade which might match the that of fascist governments and political movements of the past 100 years. Swept up in this phobia are, beyond the ostensible focus on persons with criminal profiles, produce pickers, kitchen workers, primary care physicians, AI experts.

Anne Applebaum on Trump’s recent language (June 5)

“…. A very specific language that comes from the 1930s. Trump’s been doing it for a while, but it somehow became more prominent and noticeable recently. And this is the language where he talks about the enemies within, the enemies of the people. And specifically he talks about his political opponents and migrants also as vermin, he talks about migrants poisoning the blood of Americans. And this is language that not only comes from Hitler, it also comes from Stalin. I wrote several books about Stalin and Stalinism. I have a whole file of notes that I once took in the East German Stasi archives. I typed the word vermin into the search line and discovered dozens of examples of the Stazi using it too. And it’s not been part of American politics before. American politics have been racist before and we’ve called one another traitors and unpatriotic and so on. We haven’t talked about one another as being insects or vermin or parasites. And this comes from the language of regimes who saw their enemies as not citizens, as not necessarily human, as people who could be treated or destroyed anyway that they liked. “

David Bier of the Cato Institute writes that Muslim immigrants (4M, 60% of whom are first generation immigrants) assimilate more than is suggested by standard polling. Nearly one in four Americans raised Muslim are no longer Muslim. Their personal additudes often are closer to broader U.S. public opinion. On issues such as homosexuality, religious pluralism, interfaith marriage, scriptural literalism, and the role of religion in law, Muslims here are markedly more liberal than Muslims in most majority-Muslim countries. They become more liberal over time. American Muslims show strong rejection of terrorism and extremist movements, often at levels equal to or stronger than the general public. In sum, Muslim immigrants do assimilate. (Also go here).

Note: Among the 250,000 persons of Somali descent, about half live in Minnesota.

To start at the start: in January 2025, Executive Order No. 14160 (Birthright Citizenship Executive Order.) declared that many children born in the United States to undocumented (and certain temporary-status) parents would not receive automatic U.S. citizenship. Many suits were filed  including by CASA de Maryland (CASA), a membership-based immigrant advocacy organization founded in 1985 and headquartered in Maryland and with partners and operations regionally and nationally.

CASA argued the order violated the Fourteenth Amendment, United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), and the Immigration and Nationality Act. In mid 2025, when offered the chance, the Supreme Court did not decide on the executive order. This substantive issue remained for the lower courts, which have uniformly blocked the executive order.

The case now before the Court is Trump v. CASA.  The issue: does “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” of the 14^th amendment allow the federal government to exclude children of unauthorized or temporarily present noncitizens from birthright citizenship? Formally stated, the issue: Whether Executive Order No. 14160 complies on its face with the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment and with 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), which codifies that clause.

I want to address here a leading argument of the government. It says that children born of two unauthorized persons are not “subject to” the laws of the U.S, per the 14^th amendment because they do not have “allegiance” to the U.S. On this view, children of unauthorized migrants lack full allegiance because their parents were not lawfully admitted, while children of lawful immigrants inherit sufficient allegiance through recognized status.

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) the Court held that birth on U.S. soil confers citizenship except for narrow, settled exceptions (e.g., diplomats, native Americans, invading forces). “Jurisdiction” meant being subject to U.S. law. It made no carve out for any type of immigrant and did not mention political allegiance. There is no post–Wong Kim Ark precedent at any federal court on an allegiance requirement.  The modern allegiance argument is largely a reinterpretation.

Roughly 6.8 million Syrians fled the country as refugees during the Assad years, on top of millions more displaced inside Syria. Since the regime’s fall in December 2024, about 1.2 million refugees have gone back to Syria, leaving over 5 million refugees still abroad. (here and here.)

I am concentrating here on northern Europe, as these countries offer the highest standard of living of all hosting countries and the experience there can be compared to that of refugees in the U.S. In Germany, the Syrian‑origin population peaked around 1.2 million. The UK peak was on the order of 40,000, mostly in London. Sweden received about 200,000 Syrian‑born residents at peak. The rest of Scandinavia and the Benelux countries received about 175,000. Thus, overall in northern Europe, around 1.6 million out of the total of 6.8 million.

We need to know how the outflow happened. Early on, early activists and civic leaders fled targeted persecution in 2011–2012. Many of them are skilled workers. A second, larger group escaped intense violence between 2012 and 2015.  A third group left after economic collapse and conscription risks. (Go here).

10% of practicing doctors in Germany are immigrants, and the largest share of these foreign born doctors are Syrians. They perform one role which foreign born doctors in the U.S. do, which is to work often in rural and under-served areas. For those with more limited formal skills, returning to Syria is complicated by the continuing unrest in the country.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) stated in January 2025 that “EU countries must not force Syrian refugees to return amid ongoing instability and political uncertainty in the country,” citing UNHCR advice against forced returns. (Go here.) It warned that rushing returns “would violate refugees’ rights and could create further instability.” Conditions in Syria “do not yet allow for safe, voluntary and dignified return on a large scale” and stresses that returns should “take place strictly on a voluntary basis, in line with the principle of non‑refoulement, standard of global refugee since the 1950s.

Germany has close about one million people of Syrian origin, but only a tiny fraction (on the order of a few thousand have actually returned. The chancellor has said there are “no longer any grounds for asylum” for Syrians and that “we can also begin with repatriations,”

Denmark is the northern European country that is most conspicuous in trying to induce return. It has reviewed protection for Syrians from areas it labels “safe” (Damascus, Rif Damascus, parts of the coast), withdrawn or not renewed status for dozens, and moved some people into return centers where they cannot work or study, creating what in the UK is called a “hostile environment.”