Supreme Court rejects Samoan citizenship case

The Supreme Court of the United States rejected an appeal by three people born in American Samoa for U.S. citizenship. The court agreed with a lower court that said Congress should decide the case. Two people that now live in Utah but were born in American Samoa, a cluster of islands south of Hawaii, argued that they should be allowed the same rights as U.S. citizens. American Samoa is the only unincorporated territory of the United States where the inhabitants are not citizens at birth.

What's the precedent for the case? The Insular Cases are a series of Supreme Court decisions after the Spanish-American War that created a precedent for the administration of overseas territories. The cases grant some, but not all, of the protections of the constitution to the territories, and contain dated language and arguments deemed racist by many. Some groups saw this case as a chance for the court to overturn that precedent. But the Biden administration and the territorial government of American Samoa called for the court to reject the appeal. Samoa said a Supreme Court ruling could disrupt some of its traditions, while the Biden Administration’s Constitutional lawyer said the government does not rely on the Insular Cases.

Dig deeper: Read Steve West’s article in Liberties about a case the Supreme Court did take up on whether Google should be held accountable for terrorist ideas on its platform.