U.S. Supreme Court turns away case involving birthright citizenship for American Samoans: report

Policemen are seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., the United States, June 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The three American Samoans challenged the law in federal district court in 2018, arguing it is unconstitutional because U.S. territories, like American Samoa, are "in the United States" under the Citizenship Clause.

NEW YORK, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it will not consider a case that sought to confer U.S. citizenship on American Samoans at birth and presented the justices with an opportunity to revisit a series of rulings containing racist language that denied residents of U.S. territories some constitutional rights, reported CBS.

"In turning away the dispute brought by three people born in American Samoa who now live in Utah, the Supreme Court left in place a U.S. appeals court ruling that upheld a federal law declaring that American Samoans are considered U.S. nationals, not citizens, at birth," said the report.

The three American Samoans, John Fitisemanu, Pale Tuli, Rosavita Tuli, joined by the Southern Utah Pacific Islander Coalition, challenged the law in federal district court in 2018, arguing it is unconstitutional because U.S. territories, like American Samoa, are "in the United States" under the Citizenship Clause.

The trial court sided with the three American Samoa natives, but the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld the statute. Lawyers for the three said the Denver-based appeals court relied on the controversial "Insular Cases," which were a series of decisions issued in the wake of the Spanish-American War that denied all constitutional protections to the unincorporated territories.

The cases, which date back to 1901, involved Congress's authority to govern U.S. territories, and the decisions were replete with racist language. In one concurring opinion from 1901, for example, Justice Edward Douglass White wrote that the U.S. could acquire an island "peopled with an uncivilized race" and warned against automatically granting citizenship to "those absolutely unfit to receive it."