Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch — a man who sits on the highest court in the land because Donald Trump put him there — may be the swing vote that torpedoes the Trump administration's push to restrict birthright citizenship. His reasoning? America is a "creedal nation" built on vibes and ideals, not heritage, history, or the actual people who built it. He said so himself: "We're a creedal nation, right. I mean, we don't share a religion, we don't share a race, we share an idea, OK?"
OK? No, actually. Not OK.
As Blake Neff lays out in a devastating analysis for The Spectator, Gorsuch has been promoting a children's book about the Declaration of Independence that frames American citizenship as purely ideological — untethered from any shared identity, culture, or heritage. It's the kind of philosophy that sounds lovely at a book signing and catastrophic in a Supreme Court ruling.
Gorsuch isn't alone in this "creedal nation" fantasy. It's been the comfort blanket of establishment Republicans for years. Paul Ryan trotted it out in 2016, calling America "the only nation founded on an idea, not an identity." Marco Rubio told the 2012 RNC that Americans are "united not by a common race or ethnicity, bound together by common values." Even Irving Kristol once declared that "being American has nothing to do with ethnicity, or blood-ties of any kind, or lineage."
Funny how John Jay — the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — saw it differently. In Federalist No. 2, Jay described Americans as "one united people… descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion." That doesn't sound like a creedal abstraction. That sounds like a nation.
But here's where the philosophy meets the pavement. The numbers are staggering. Approximately 26,000 children are born in the United States every year through birth tourism alone — foreigners who fly in specifically to have their babies on American soil to secure citizenship. That figure is higher than the annual birth rate of 15 U.S. states. One-third of all surrogate births in America are now for foreign parents. And one-tenth of all U.S. births involve children of illegal immigrants.
We didn't fight for three Supreme Court seats so a justice could rule based on his book tour philosophy.
The birthright citizenship case heading to SCOTUS is one of the most consequential immigration battles of the Trump era. The administration has pushed hard to end the exploitation of the 14th Amendment by foreign nationals who game the system. And now, the guy Trump personally elevated to the bench might be the one who hands the left a victory — not because the law demands it, but because Neil Gorsuch thinks America is just an idea anyone can opt into by showing up.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration. He also enforced immigration laws. The Founders managed to hold both concepts in their heads at once. Apparently that's too complicated for a sitting Supreme Court justice with a children's book to promote.
If Gorsuch sides against the administration, it won't just be a legal setback. It'll be a betrayal dressed up in high-minded rhetoric — the kind of betrayal the establishment wing has perfected over decades. We voted for judges who would interpret the Constitution, not judges who'd rewrite the nation's identity from the bench based on whatever they told a room full of third-graders.