The Origins of US Migration and Citizenship with Anna Law (CUNY Brooklyn College)
The U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld birthright citizenship in June and the invocations of competing versions of US history in the Trump v Barbara opinion sparked questions about the origins of that bedrock constitutional guarantee. What was citizenship like before the 14th Amendment and why is the bedrock guarantee of birthright citizenship in the Constitution? Professor Anna Law, a scholar of US immigration and constitutional law and history, is the author of a timely new book that addresses these questions.
Anna O. Law is the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights and Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York, Brooklyn College. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of U.S. migration and constitutional law and history. Her research is published in political science, history, and law journals. Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship, her newest book, was cited in one of the “friends of the court” legal briefs in defense of birthright citizenship in Trump v Barbara, the June 2026 Supreme Court decision on birthright citizenship.