Pema Levy for Mother Jones:

It’s the job of the Department of Justice to defend the laws of the United States to the best of its ability. But earlier this month, that job led the Obama administration’s top lawyers to take an awkward, even embarrassing position: embracing a racist, century-old precedent in order to deny birthright citizenship to people from the territory of American Samoa.

American Samoans are the only people born on US soil who are denied birthright citizenship. Five people from the island territory are suing the federal government, arguing that this deprivation violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship to “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Last year, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the American Samoans. The plaintiffs are now appealing to the Supreme Court.

On the opposite side is the Obama administration, which urged the Supreme Court not to take the case in a brief earlier this month. In doing so, the government offered a full-throated endorsement of a set of Supreme Court rulings known as the Insular Cases, which are notorious today for espousing antiquated ideas about colonialism and white supremacy.