Neil Weare, who grew up in Guam, is co-director of Right to Democracy, which works to advance democracy, equity, and self-determination across U.S. territories without taking a position on status outcomes. He is co-author of the forthcoming legal casebook, Law of U.S. Territories, which he has taught at Yale and Columbia.
The president finds the long-settled meaning of the citizenship clause to be an intolerable obstacle to his agenda. The reason? Each year it would make U.S. citizens of tens of thousands of people who do not fit his racial and cultural ideal of what it means to be an “American.” So what does he do?
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