U$ Supreme Court Declines
To Take Case Aimed At Overturning
100-Year-Old Racist Precedents
The Supreme Court declined to take a case challenging its 100-year-old racist precedents that continue to deny equal rights to the 3.6 million residents of overseas U.S. territories on Monday.
Three American Samoans living in Utah and a Samoan nonprofit petitioned the court in Fitisemanu v. U.S. to overturn the Insular Cases, the court’s early 20th-century precedents that enabled the country’s colonial expansion by allowing it to absorb overseas territories populated by non-white peoples while denying them equal rights or a path to statehood.
“It’s a punch in the gut for the Justices to leave in place a ruling that says I am not equal to other Americans simply because I was born in a U.S. territory,” John Fitisemanu, the lead plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “I was born on U.S. soil, have a U.S. passport, and pay my taxes like everyone else. But because of a discriminatory federal law, I am not recognized as a U.S. citizen.”
The Insular Cases that deny people like Fitisemanu equal rights as citizens were explicitly founded on racist premises. The cases, which occurred from 1901 to 1922, claimed that the people of the overseas territories the U.S. conquered in the Spanish-American War came from “savage tribes” and “alien” and “uncivilized race[s]” who were “absolutely unfit to receive” the rights provided by the Constitution. The court invented a new legal class of “unincorporated territory” for the colonial possessions taken from Spain that denied them equal rights and statehood.
Today, the Insular Cases still govern the U.S. overseas territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In each territory, Congress has negotiated different rules for people’s access to their rights as Americans.
For example, unlike other territorial inhabitants, American Samoans are not officially U.S. citizens, but American nationals. This means that even if they move to a state or the District of Columbia, they will be denied the right to vote. This was one of the chief complaints made by Fitisemanu and the other plaintiffs in the case.
Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch (standing second from the left) and Sonia Sotomayor (seated furthest left) are the only justices known to support overturning the Insular Cases. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Fitisemanu v. U.S. challenged the constitutionality of the Insular Cases by arguing that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause grants U.S. citizenship to all people “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” As these territories are both a part of the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction, the residents of the territories ought to be granted full access to that citizenship, the plaintiffs argued.
For years now, territorial residents have sought to loosen the grip of the Insular Cases or overturn them entirely through the courts. In each case, the courts have refused to do so.
There was some expectation that the Supreme Court may act differently on Fitisemanu after Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor declared in the case of Vaello-Madero v. U.S. that they would like to see the Insular Cases overturned.
“[It is] past time to acknowledge the gravity of this error and admit what we know to be true: The Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes. They deserve no place in our law,” Gorsuch wrote in a concurrence in Vaello-Madero.
In agreeing with Gorsuch that the Insular Cases should be overturned, Sotomayor called them “both odious and wrong” in her Vaello-Madero dissent.
But four of the nine Supreme Court justices must vote to take up a case. Clearly, there were not four votes to take up Fitisemanu. There were also no written dissents from the denial of the case.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
COLONYUS Supreme Court rejects appeal to give American Samoans citizenship
The U.S Supreme Court is seen, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022 in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
MARK SHERMAN
Mon, October 17, 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal seeking to give people born in American Samoa U.S. citizenship.
In leaving in place an appeals court decision, the court also passed up an invitation to overturn a series of decisions dating back to 1901 known as the Insular Cases, replete with racist and anti-foreign rhetoric. Justice Neil Gorsuch had called for the cases to be overturned in April.
But the justices refused to take up an appeal from people born in American Samoa, and living in Utah, who argued that a federal law declaring that they are “nationals, but not citizens, of the United States at birth” is unconstitutional.
A trial judge in Utah ruled in their favor, but the federal appeals court in Denver said Congress, not courts, should decide the citizenship issue. The appeals court also noted that American Samoa's elected leaders opposed the lawsuit for fear that it might disrupt their cultural traditions.
“It’s a punch in the gut for the Justices to leave in place a ruling that says I am not equal to other Americans simply because I was born in a U.S. territory," John Fitisemanu, the lead plaintiff, said in a statement. “I was born on U.S. soil, have a U.S. passport and pay my taxes like everyone else. But because of a discriminatory federal law, I am not recognized as a U.S. citizen.”
American Samoa is the only unincorporated territory of the United States where the inhabitants are not American citizens at birth.
Instead, those born in the cluster of islands some 2,600 miles (4,184 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii are granted “U.S. national” status, meaning they can’t vote for U.S. president, run for office outside American Samoa or apply for certain jobs. The only federal election they can cast a vote in is the race for American Samoa’s nonvoting U.S. House seat.
Not taking up the case “helps preserve American Samoa’s cultural priorities and right of self-determination,” said Amata Coleman Radewagen, American Samoa’s U.S. House delegate.
“Our people value American Samoa’s right of self-determination, with great love for the United States as expressed in our people’s high rate of service to the country,” she said in a statement. “The issue of the Insular Cases can be addressed by Congress, based on self-determination by the people of each territory."
The Insular Cases, which arose following the Spanish-American War, dealt with the administration of overseas territories.
In their conclusion that residents of territories had some, but not all, rights under the Constitution, justices wrote in stark racial and xenophobic terms. Citizenship could not be automatically given to “those absolutely unfit to receive it,” one justice wrote.
That history prompted Gorsuch to comment in a case involving benefits denied to people who live in Puerto Rico, decided in April. He wrote that the Insular Cases were wrongly decided because they deprived residents of U.S. territories of some constitutional rights.
“It is past time to acknowledge the gravity of this error and admit what we know to be true: The Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes. They have no place in our law,” Gorsuch wrote.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by three American Samoa natives now living in Utah, where they are prohibited from voting or becoming police officers.
The Biden administration joined the American Samoa government in calling for the court to reject the appeal. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote that “the government in no way relies on the indefensible and discredited aspects of the Insular Cases’ reasoning and rhetoric” that was highlighted in the appeal. __
AP journalist Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
MARK SHERMAN
Mon, October 17, 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal seeking to give people born in American Samoa U.S. citizenship.
In leaving in place an appeals court decision, the court also passed up an invitation to overturn a series of decisions dating back to 1901 known as the Insular Cases, replete with racist and anti-foreign rhetoric. Justice Neil Gorsuch had called for the cases to be overturned in April.
But the justices refused to take up an appeal from people born in American Samoa, and living in Utah, who argued that a federal law declaring that they are “nationals, but not citizens, of the United States at birth” is unconstitutional.
A trial judge in Utah ruled in their favor, but the federal appeals court in Denver said Congress, not courts, should decide the citizenship issue. The appeals court also noted that American Samoa's elected leaders opposed the lawsuit for fear that it might disrupt their cultural traditions.
“It’s a punch in the gut for the Justices to leave in place a ruling that says I am not equal to other Americans simply because I was born in a U.S. territory," John Fitisemanu, the lead plaintiff, said in a statement. “I was born on U.S. soil, have a U.S. passport and pay my taxes like everyone else. But because of a discriminatory federal law, I am not recognized as a U.S. citizen.”
American Samoa is the only unincorporated territory of the United States where the inhabitants are not American citizens at birth.
Instead, those born in the cluster of islands some 2,600 miles (4,184 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii are granted “U.S. national” status, meaning they can’t vote for U.S. president, run for office outside American Samoa or apply for certain jobs. The only federal election they can cast a vote in is the race for American Samoa’s nonvoting U.S. House seat.
Not taking up the case “helps preserve American Samoa’s cultural priorities and right of self-determination,” said Amata Coleman Radewagen, American Samoa’s U.S. House delegate.
“Our people value American Samoa’s right of self-determination, with great love for the United States as expressed in our people’s high rate of service to the country,” she said in a statement. “The issue of the Insular Cases can be addressed by Congress, based on self-determination by the people of each territory."
The Insular Cases, which arose following the Spanish-American War, dealt with the administration of overseas territories.
In their conclusion that residents of territories had some, but not all, rights under the Constitution, justices wrote in stark racial and xenophobic terms. Citizenship could not be automatically given to “those absolutely unfit to receive it,” one justice wrote.
That history prompted Gorsuch to comment in a case involving benefits denied to people who live in Puerto Rico, decided in April. He wrote that the Insular Cases were wrongly decided because they deprived residents of U.S. territories of some constitutional rights.
“It is past time to acknowledge the gravity of this error and admit what we know to be true: The Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes. They have no place in our law,” Gorsuch wrote.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by three American Samoa natives now living in Utah, where they are prohibited from voting or becoming police officers.
The Biden administration joined the American Samoa government in calling for the court to reject the appeal. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote that “the government in no way relies on the indefensible and discredited aspects of the Insular Cases’ reasoning and rhetoric” that was highlighted in the appeal. __
AP journalist Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
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