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      House G.O.P. Moves to Crack Down on Noncitizen Voting, Sowing False Narrative

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      The bills under consideration have virtually no chance of becoming law, but Republicans are using them to amplify Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread illegal voting by noncitizens.Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, which happens rarely and is already illegal in federal elections, in a move that reinforces former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the 2024 results if he loses.This week, House Republicans plan to vote on a bill that would roll back a District of Columbia law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, which they contend is needed to prevent Democrats from expanding the practice to other jurisdictions. And they are advancing another measure that would require states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering a person to vote.The legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law, but it serves to amplify one of Mr. Trump’s favorite pre-emptive claims of election fraud. It also underscores Republicans’ embrace of a groundless narrative — one that echoes the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory — that Democrats are intentionally allowing migrants to stream into the United States illegally in order to dilute the voting power of American citizens and lock in electoral victories for themselves.Speaker Mike Johnson recently appeared alongside Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida resort and residence, to announce a pledge to get tough on migrants flowing across the border, suggesting with no evidence that they were coming in unchecked as part of a plot to vote for President Biden.“There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system — and that is the threat of noncitizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections,” Mr. Johnson warned during a news conference on the steps of the Capitol this month.But he conceded that he had no evidence to support that assertion.“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable,” Mr. Johnson said. “We don’t have that number.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why a Tactic Used by Czars Is Back With a Vengeance

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      Authoritarian governments have long sought to target dissidents abroad. But the digital age may have given them stronger motives, and better tools, for transnational repression.Diplomatic tensions are rising here in London. On Tuesday, the British foreign ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador for an official reprimand. The day before, the police charged three men with aiding the Hong Kong intelligence service and forcing entry into a residential address.In a statement, the Foreign Office criticized “the recent pattern of behavior directed by China against the U.K,” and cited, among other things, Hong Kong’s issuing of bounties for information on dissidents who have resettled in Britain and elsewhere.I’m not going to speculate on whether the three men are guilty or innocent, as their court case is ongoing. But the arrests have drawn attention to the phenomenon of “transnational repression,” in which autocratic governments surveil, harass or even attack their own citizens abroad. Last month, following a string of attacks on Iranian journalists, Reporters Without Borders proclaimed London a “hot spot” for the phenomenon.Although transnational repression is an old practice, it appears to be gaining prevalence. Globalization and the internet have made it easier for exiles to engage in activism, and have also increased autocracies’ desire — and ability — to crack down on political activity in their diasporas.“Everyone is online,” said Dana Moss, a professor at Notre Dame who coedited a recent book about transnational repression. “And we all have tracking devices called smartphones in our pockets.”Is transnational repression on the rise, or does it just feel like that?“This is a very old phenomenon,” said Marlies Glasius, a professor of international relations at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. “We know that the czarist regimes, for instance, kept tabs on Russian dissidents in Paris.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Racial Profiling in Japan Is Prevalent but Unseen, Some Residents Say

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      Experts say the country’s first lawsuit about police discrimination against foreign-born residents highlights a systematic problem.It’s not that there is anything bad about your hair, the police officer politely explained to the young Black man as commuters streamed past in Tokyo Station. It’s just that, based on his experience, people with dreadlocks were more likely to possess drugs.Alonzo Omotegawa’s video of his 2021 stop and search led to debates about racial profiling in Japan and an internal review by the police. For him, though, it was part of a perennial problem that began when he was first questioned as a 13-year-old.“In their mind, they’re just doing their job,” said Mr. Omotegawa, 28, an English teacher who is half-Japanese and half-Bahamian, born and raised in Japan.“I’m like as Japanese as it comes, just a bit tan,” he added. “Not every Black person is going to have drugs.”Racial profiling is emerging as a flashpoint in Japan as increasing numbers of migrant workers, foreign residents and mixed-race Japanese change the country’s traditionally homogenous society and test deep-seated suspicion toward outsiders.With one of the world’s oldest populations and a stubbornly low birthrate, Japan has been forced to rethink its restrictive immigration policies. And as record numbers of migrant workers arrive in the country, many of the people tidying up hotel rooms, working the register at convenience stores or flipping burgers are from places like Vietnam, Indonesia or Sri Lanka.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The National Book Awards Opens Up to Writers Who Are Not U.S. Citizens

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      The awards, which celebrate the best of American literature, are expanding the definition of who qualifies.Since their inauguration in 1950, the National Book Awards have set a lofty goal: to celebrate the best writing in America. And for most of the awards’ history, American literature was defined as books written by United States citizens.On Thursday, the National Book Foundation, which administers the prizes, announced that it was dropping the citizenship requirement, opening up the prize to immigrants and other longtime residents who have made their home in the United States.Ruth Dickey, the executive director of the National Book Foundation, said she hoped the change would help broaden the way the book world defines great American writing.“We are all deeply thinking about, how do we most expansively think about the literature of a place, and how writers contribute to that place?” she said. “How do we think about who are the writers who are part of a literary community, and who are we excluding when we draw certain boundaries?”In adopting the change, the National Book Awards are following other major literary prizes and organizations.Last fall, the board that administers the Pulitzer Prizes said that beginning with their 2025 prizes, permanent and longtime residents of the United States would be eligible for its awards for literature, drama and music. Previously, those categories were only open to American citizens, whereas the journalism awards were open to noncitizens whose work was published by U.S. media. The Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Foundation have also expanded their prizes to include poetry by immigrants with temporary legal status.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Wants Us to Know He Will Stop at Nothing in 2025

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      Over the past few weeks, we’ve gotten a pretty good idea of what Donald Trump would do if given a second chance in the White House. And it is neither exaggeration nor hyperbole to say that it looks an awful lot like a set of proposals meant to give the former president the power and unchecked authority of a strongman.Trump would purge the federal government of as many civil servants as possible. In their place, he would install an army of political and ideological loyalists whose fealty to Trump’s interests would stand far and above their commitment to either the rule of law or the Constitution.With the help of these unscrupulous allies, Trump plans to turn the Department of Justice against his political opponents, prosecuting his critics and rivals. He would use the military to crush protests under the Insurrection Act — which he hoped to do during the summer of 2020 — and turn the power of the federal government against his perceived enemies. “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election,” Trump said in a recent interview on the Spanish-language network Univision.As the former president wrote in a disturbing and authoritarian-minded Veterans Day message to supporters (itself echoing a speech he delivered that same to day to supporters in New Hampshire): “We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American dream.”Trump has other plans as well. As several of my Times colleagues reported last week, he hopes to institute a program of mass detainment and deportation of undocumented immigrants. His aides have already drawn up plans for new detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border, where anyone suspected of illegal entry would be held until authorities have settled the person’s immigration status. Given the former president’s rhetoric attacking political enemies and other supposedly undesirable groups like the homeless — Trump has said that the government should “remove” homeless Americans and put them in tents on “large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities” — there’s little doubt that some American citizens would find themselves in these large and sprawling camps.Included in this effort to rid the United States of as many immigrants as possible is a proposal to target people here legally — like green-card holders or people on student visas — who harbor supposedly “jihadist sympathies” or espouse views deemed anti-American. Trump also intends to circumvent the 14th Amendment so that he can end birthright citizenship for the children of unauthorized immigrants.In the past, Trump has gestured at seeking a third term in office after serving a second four-year term in the White House. “We are going to win four more years,” Trump said during his 2020 campaign. “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.” This too would violate the Constitution, but then, in a world in which Trump gets his way on his authoritarian agenda, the Constitution — and the rule of law — would already be a dead letter.It might be tempting to dismiss the former president’s rhetoric and plans as either jokes or the ravings of a lunatic who may eventually find himself in jail. But to borrow an overused phrase, it is important to take the words of both presidents and presidential candidates seriously as well as literally.They may fail — in fact, they often do — but presidents try to keep their campaign promises and act on their campaign plans. In a rebuke to those who urged us not to take him literally in 2016, we saw Trump attempt to do what he said he would do during his first term in office. He said he would “build a wall,” and he tried to build a wall. He said he would try to keep Muslims out of the country, and he tried to keep Muslims out of the country. He said he would do as much as he could to restrict immigration from Mexico, and he did as much as he could, and then some, to restrict immigration from Mexico.He even suggested, in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, that he would reject an election defeat. Four years later, he lost his bid for re-election. We know what happened next.In addition to Trump’s words, which we should treat as a reliable guide to his actions, desires and preoccupations, we have his allies, who are as open in their contempt for democracy as Trump is. Ensconced at institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the Claremont Institute, Trump’s political and ideological allies have made no secret of their desire to install a reactionary Caesar at the head of the American state. As Damon Linker noted in his essay on these figures for the Opinion section, they exist to give “Republican elites permission and encouragement to do things that just a few years ago would have been considered unthinkable.”Americans are obsessed with hidden meanings and secret revelations. This is why many of us are taken with the tell-all memoirs of political operatives or historical materials like the Nixon tapes. We often pay the most attention to those things that have been hidden from view. But the mundane truth of American politics is that much of what we want to know is in plain view. You don’t have to search hard or seek it out; you just have to listen.And Donald Trump is telling us, loud and clear, that he wants to end American democracy as we know it.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      What Frederick Douglass Knew That Trump and DeSantis Don’t

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      There was a moment during the Trump administration when the president and his most ideologically committed advisers searched for a way to end birthright citizenship.Enshrined in the first sentence of the first section of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, birthright citizenship means that anyone and everyone born on American soil is an American citizen. Written to secure the social transformations wrought by the Civil War, it is a cornerstone of the United States as a multiracial democracy.President Donald Trump would end it, he decided, by executive order. “It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” he said when announcing the effort in 2018, falsely asserting, “We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States — with all of those benefits. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”Fortunately, Trump was wrong. There is no way, short of a constitutional amendment, to nullify the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. Nor was there any question of its meaning and intent. After fierce pushback from legal scholars on both the left and the right, Trump dropped the issue.But he didn’t forget about it. Earlier this year, Trump announced that if he were elected president again, he would ban birthright citizenship through executive order. Not to be outdone in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, said that he, too, would end birthright citizenship if elected president.“Stop the invasion,” said DeSantis’s blueprint for immigration policy. “No excuses.” He is pledging to “take action to end the idea that the children of illegal aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship if they are born in the United States.” He also contends, “Dangling the prize of citizenship to the future offspring of illegal immigrants is a major driver of illegal migration,” adding that “it is also inconsistent with the original understanding of the 14th Amendment.”The main reason DeSantis has followed Trump down this path is that he appears to be running to be the understudy to the former president. If Trump is forced out of the race because his legal troubles push him out of presidential politics, then DeSantis will take the standard for the MAGA faithful. Or so he hopes.At the same time, it’s clear that DeSantis’s position is as much about ideology as it is about opportunism. His attack on birthright citizenship is consistent with his crusade to purge “wokeness” from schools and classrooms in the state of Florida, where officials have banned books and suppressed instruction on, among other subjects, the history of American racism.The attack on birthright citizenship is an attempt to stigmatize and remove from society an entire class of people. And the attack on so-called wokeness is an attempt to delegitimize and remove from society an entire way of understanding the world. Together, the attacks form an assault on two of the pillars of the egalitarian ideal.Here, it is worth taking a brief tour of the history of birthright citizenship in the United States. Before the 14th Amendment, the boundaries around citizenship were ill defined. Although the idea of birthright citizenship was present in English common law at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, the Constitution as ratified said nothing about acquiring citizenship by either birth or naturalization.In 1790, Congress limited citizenship by naturalization to “free White persons … of good character,” but was silent on the question of citizenship by birth. As the 18th century came to a close and the 19th century progressed, one prominent view was that there was no citizenship in the United States as such; there was only citizenship in a state, which conferred national citizenship by virtue of the state’s place in the Union. To the extent that citizenship came with rights, the scope of those rights was a question of state laws and state constitutions.But there were always proponents of a broader, more expansive and rights-bearing birthright citizenship. They were free Black Americans, who needed to anchor themselves in a world where their freedom was tenuous and uncertain.“We are Americans, having a birthright citizenship,” wrote Martin Delany, the free Black journalist and antislavery orator, in his 1852 pamphlet “The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States.” Delany, as the historian Martha S. Jones noted in “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America,” called on Black Americans to leave the United States. And yet, he still claimed the country as his own.“Our common country is the United States,” Delany wrote. “Here were we born, here raised and educated; here are the scenes of childhood; the pleasant associations of our school going days; the loved enjoyments of our domestic and fireside relations, and the sacred graves of our departed fathers and mothers, and from here will we not be driven by any policy that may be schemed against us.”Against legislative efforts to make their lives in America impossible to live, free Blacks asserted that, in Delany’s words, “the rights of the colored man in this country to citizenship are fixed,” attached not just to the states, but to the United States.Jones noted that even those opposed to emigration, like the men of the 1853 Colored National Convention in Rochester, N.Y., mirrored Delany’s thinking. “We are Americans, and as Americans, we would speak to Americans,” declared the group. “We address you not as aliens nor as exiles, humbly asking to be permitted to dwell among you in peace; but we address you as American citizens asserting their rights on their own native soil.”With his 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, however, Chief Justice Roger Taney foreclosed the constitutional recognition of Black citizenship and defined the United States, in true Jacksonian form, as a white man’s country. Black people, he wrote, “were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.” They had no rights, he added, “which the white man was bound to respect.”The birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, based on similar language found in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, was a direct response to and a rebuke of Taney’s reasoning. Having won the argument on the battlefield, the United States would amend its Constitution to establish an inclusive and, in theory, egalitarian national citizenship.The authors of the 14th Amendment knew exactly what they were doing. In a country that had already seen successive waves of mass immigration, they knew that birthright citizenship would extend beyond Black and white Americans to people of other hues and backgrounds. That was the point.Asked by an opponent if the clause would “have the effect of naturalizing the children of Chinese and Gypsies born in this country,” Senator Lyman Trumbull, who helped draft the language of birthright citizenship in the Civil Rights Act, replied “Undoubtedly.” Senator John Conness of California said outright that he was “ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment, that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others.”In 1867, around the time Congress was debating and formulating the 14th Amendment, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech in Boston where he outlined his vision of a “composite nationality,” an America that stood as a beacon for all peoples, built on the foundation of an egalitarian republic. “I want a home here not only for the Negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours,” Douglass said. “The outspread wings of the American Eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come.”If birthright citizenship is the constitutional provision that makes a multiracial democracy of equals possible, then it is no wonder that it now lies in the cross hairs of men who lead a movement devoted to unraveling that particular vision of the American republic.Embedded in birthright citizenship, in other words, is the potential for a freer, more equal America. For Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, that appears to be the problem.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Congress Has Once Again Failed Immigrant Youths

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      Imagine what it’s like to live in a state of perpetual uncertainty — at any moment you could lose your job because you no longer have the right to work legally. Picture families ripped apart — a mother sent back to a country she barely remembers, forced to leave her child behind. What would you do if the teachers, doctors and nurses in your community were suddenly barred from entering your children’s classrooms or treating your loved ones?As someone who is protected by DACA, I think a lot about this.During this lame duck session of Congress, while Democrats still control both chambers, there was an opportunity to keep this scenario from becoming a reality. A bipartisan proposal, led by Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Thom Tillis, would have provided a path to citizenship for about two million immigrant youths, including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But negotiations to include it in the 2023 omnibus appropriations bill failed.This might’ve been the last chance to save DACA. The program remains under attack and could be undone by the Supreme Court as early as next year, ripping away work permits and protections from deportation for hundreds of thousands of young people. Republicans, readying to seize control of the House in less than two weeks, have already made it clear that they won’t advance legislation that protects undocumented immigrants.I first came to Washington in 2010 to fight for the Dream Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship to undocumented people who came to the United States as children. I was a college student at Texas A&M University, and I persuaded United We Dream, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy organization, to cover the cost of a bus to transport me and other young undocumented students from Texas to Washington so we could join rallies and meet with elected officials to lobby for the bill.When the Dream Act failed to pass, many of us came out more publicly about our immigration status in an effort to pressure President Barack Obama to act. Two years later, he signed an executive order to create DACA, a temporary fix that allowed young undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, as I did from Mexico at age 7, to obtain work permits and protection from deportation if they met certain criteria.Today, as executive director of United We Dream, I help to lead our network of undocumented youths all the while knowing I have to live with the same uncertainty, the same inability to plan, without a path to citizenship.Last week, I watched as hundreds of United We Dream members, alongside other immigrant youths and allies, descended on Washington from states including Alaska, Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina to urge Congress to act. Those young people, who reminded me so much of myself in 2010, filled my spirit with their hope, determination and resilience.We have shared our stories, we have held rallies, we have knocked on doors in the middle of a pandemic. It breaks my heart that once again Congress has failed us.Our loss of work permits and deportation protections would have far-reaching implications for our country. As DACA recipients, we have to renew our status every two years. If the program were to end, we would most likely fall out of status on a rolling basis, which means an estimated 1,000 people would lose their jobs each day for two years.If we lose our right to live and work here legally, we will lose our ability to pay our mortgages, our access to employer-sponsored health insurance and the ability to pay our employees. According to the New American Economy Research Fund, DACA-eligible immigrants collectively earn more than $20 billion per year, most of which is either paid out in federal taxes or spent in the economy.We represent some 200,000 essential workers, including nearly 30,000 health care workers who have helped communities across the country get through this pandemic. The education profession is among the top careers DACA recipients pursue. If the program ends, the field stands to lose 800 DACA-protected professionals per month for two years. The end of the program will also bring uncertainty to the over 2.5 million people who live with a DACA recipient.Providing citizenship for immigrant youths has broad support from voters. And Democrats in Congress owe their legislative power to Black and brown organizers on the ground in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania and Nevada who have been organizing for years, leading to significant grass-roots support. And in Arizona, where they have been fighting back against racist anti-immigrant policies for over a decade. Those organizers knocked on doors in 2018, 2020 and 2022 to help Democrats in Arizona win and retain two Senate seats and delivered the state’s Electoral College votes to a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in over 20 years.When I think about the millions of young immigrants, including DACA recipients, who have had to live their lives in a perpetual state of limbo, I am filled with righteous anger, which I channel into action and a discipline of hope that we are working to create the conditions for us to win and to build the futures we deserve.We need President Biden and members of Congress to come together and meet this moment with the urgency it requires.Greisa Martínez Rosas is a DACA recipient and executive director of United We Dream, the nation’s largest youth-led immigrant network.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Only U.S. Territory Without U.S. Birthright Citizenship

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      People born in American Samoa, which has been held by the United States for more than 120 years, are not automatically citizens of the United States.The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter with the Australia bureau.It seems straightforward enough. As the American Constitution put it, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”And generally, that’s accurate. People born in any of the 50 states, one federal district and four major territories (Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) are automatically American citizens.But in one American territory, which has been held by the United States for more than 120 years and which is some 2,600 miles (4,184 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii, they aren’t.Every April, people in American Samoa, which has a population of about 50,000, celebrate “Flag Day,” the most important holiday of the year, commemorating its five islands and two coastal atolls becoming part of the United States. Its residents serve in the U.S. military — indeed, more soldiers per capita come from the Pacific territory than from any other U.S. territory or state. If they choose to leave their island home, they can live anywhere else in the United States they like. They even hold American passports.But they aren’t United States citizens. Instead, American Samoans are U.S. “nationals,” a small but significant distinction that precludes them from voting, running for office, and holding jobs in a narrow selection of fields, including law enforcement. They can become citizens after moving to the mainland, but the process is long, requires passing a history test and costs at least $725, before legal fees, without any guarantee of success.Until quite recently, the difference between being a U.S. national and a U.S. citizen was not always closely observed. Many American Samoans living elsewhere in the United States voted in elections without knowing that they were ineligible to.But under the Trump administration, that distinction became more closely observed. In 2018, a woman born in American Samoa ran as a Republican state House candidate in Hawaii, before learning that she was ineligible to run or even to vote. American Samoans serving as officers in the U.S. Army suddenly found that unless they underwent naturalization, they would be demoted.A handful of American Samoans living in the United States have attempted to challenge the status quo. In a recent case, which the U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to hear, three American Samoans living in Utah sought to demonstrate the ways in which not having U.S. citizenship were harmful to them.One said he had been criticized by his peers for not voting in elections; another was precluded from pursuing a career as a police officer, he said; a third said that as a noncitizen, she could not sponsor her ailing parents for immigration visas to the United States, where they could receive better health care. (Her father subsequently died before he was able to relocate.)Perhaps surprisingly, the government of American Samoans, as well as a majority of its citizens, is opposed to its residents acquiring birthright citizenship, particularly by judicial fiat, said Michael F. Williams, a lawyer who represents the government.In 1900, chiefs in American Samoa agreed to become part of the United States by signing a deed, which included protections for fa’a Samoa, a phrase meaning “the Samoan way” that refers to the islands’ traditional culture.“The American Samoan people have concerns that incorporating citizenship wholesale to the territory of American Samoa could have a harmful impact on traditional Samoan culture,” Williams said. He added: “The American Samoans believe if they need to make this fundamental change, they should be the ones to bring it upon themselves, not have some judge in Salt Lake City, or in Denver, Colorado, or Washington, D.C., doing it.”Yet the reasons American Samoans do not have birthright citizenship were not originally related to any effort to protect Samoan culture. Instead, a set of court cases in the early 20th century, known as the “Insular Cases,” established that U.S. territories were at once part of the United States and outside of it. The reason, the Supreme Court ruled in 1901, was that these territories were “foreign in a domestic sense,” “inhabited by alien races,” and that therefore governing them “according to Anglo-Saxon principles may for a time be impossible.”Those calling for a legislative change include Charles Ala’ilima, a lawyer based in American Samoa.“There’s only one class of citizens in the United States — except here in American Samoa,” he said. “What we have now is basically the imposition of second-class status on a people that are under the sovereignty of the government. That is the definition of colonialism.”Some legal scholars contend that American Samoa is not entirely subject to the United States Constitution, allowing it to maintain certain features of life, including the sa, a prayer curfew in place in some villages, and traditional communal ownership of land. Imposing birthright citizenship, they argue, would put those traditions at legal risk.But in the 1970s, a court in Washington, D.C., found that residents of American Samoa had the right to a jury trials “as guaranteed by our Constitution” — even after a court in American Samoa said that introducing jury trials would be “an arbitrary, illogical, and inappropriate foreign imposition.”Introducing jury trials has made little difference to the Samoan way of life, Ala’ilima said, and there was no evidence to suggest that granting its people citizenship would either. In the Northern Mariana Islands, another U.S. territory, residents can restrict land ownership to people of native descent — while still receiving birthright citizenship.“My impression is that at some level, they know that if they get upgraded to citizen, nothing’s going to happen,” he said, of the American Samoan government. Already, he added, a significant minority of American Samoans were citizens of the United States through descent.But for others in the territory, Hawaii, a former U.S. territory that acquired statehood in 1959, stands as a warning. “The government of American Samoa looks at Hawaii and sees what has happened to the native Hawaiians. Hawaii has become a playground for rich Americans; Native Hawaiian people are looking at crumbs,” Williams said.“Programs that were established by the state government in Hawaii for the benefit of Native Hawaiians, including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, have been struck down or limited by constitutional litigation, based on the argument that it would be unfair to help one category of citizens based solely on their race,” he added.It may be that, to the extent American Samoa is already exposed to this risk, as some contend, granting birthright citizenship to its people would make little difference, beyond giving its people something that they are constitutionally owed. But for its leaders, and its deeply conservative people, the unknown consequences for now feel far too great.And now for the week’s stories.Australia and New ZealandKarangahape Road, Auckland.Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesSelling Stories on Auckland’s Ponsonby and Karangahape Roads. Stores in New Zealand’s largest city honor local craftspeople, sustainability — and, sometimes, their owners’ grandparents.World Cup 2022: How Australia Can Advance to the Round of 16. Here’s how Australia can qualify for the next round.Wrangling Over Australian Dinner. A couple disagrees on what to call different meals of the day.Around The TimesDoctors operating on a 13-year-old patient during an electricity outage in Kherson, Ukraine, on Tuesday.Bernat Armangue/Associated PressUkraine Adjusts to Life in the Dark. After a barrage of Russian missiles hit Ukrainian infrastructure, engineers and emergency crews worked desperately to restore services through darkness, snow and freezing rain.Covid Frustration Grows in China. As China’s harsh Covid rules extend deep into their third year, there are growing signs of discontent across the country.An Echoless Chamber in an Old Minneapolis Recording Studio. Could Caity Weaver, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, survive the world’s quietest place — and perhaps even set a record for the longest time spent within its walls?Are you enjoying our Australia bureau dispatches?Tell us what you think at NYTAustralia@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends (they could use a little fresh perspective, right?) and let them know they can sign up here.Enjoying the Australia Letter? Sign up here or forward to a friend.For more Australia coverage and discussion, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group. More