The opinion by Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate’s nonpartisan parliamentarian, was a setback for the Biden administration and Democrats who would have to reach 60 votes in the Senate for any immigration reform, rather than a simple majority through reconciliation, a process reserved for matters that affect spending, revenues, the deficit or the debt limit. The Senate is evenly split between the parties.
If upheld, a federal court ruling would solidify birthright citizenship as the law of the land, and overturn more than a century of federal refusal to grant American Samoans citizenship status.
