The more kinds of citizens the merrier

The US Supreme Court's decision to strike down Donald Trump's executive order curtailing birthright citizenship stops a silly idea in its tracks. By reaffirming that nearly all infants born on American soil are citizens, the court has defended the universality enshrined in the US Constitution which, last heard, still holds sway in that country. The message is clear: citizenship is not inherited like property, but conferred by belonging to a place. The ruling exposes the Latinate obsolescence of jus sanguinis (citizenship by blood). In a world where identities are increasingly fluid, insisting on 'ancestral purity' is as outdated as professions along caste lines.

The ongoing football World Cup provides a stark lesson, where nations thrive not by excluding but by embracing as many nationalities as possible to make their citizenry. To demand some other atavistic proof of kinship would be to deny the very cosmopolitanism that makes modern societies thrive. The US, more than other countries, should know this. Its innovation economy has been built much on 'imported' talent. Universities, companies and research labs flourish when they attract minds from across the globe.

Citizenship provides a surety. Trump's order, had it stood, would have also created a stateless underclass - millions born in the US but denied its promise. The court's ruling averts that dystopia that only failing states seek as misguided 'protection'. Belonging is not defined by Trump's 1950s politico-aesthetics, but by participation, contribution and presence. Whether in football, business or democracy, identity is fluid. Nations embracing this fluidity prosper. Those who cling to outdated notions of 'Blut und Boden' (blood and soil) close doors on themselves.