THE ATLANTIC – Politics | Politics & Government

Early last year, a woman named Liza and her husband were busy preparing for the birth of their child. On top of the normal stresses of pregnancy, they faced another, less typical concern: that their baby would be stateless. The couple had left Russia for the United States. Liza is legally in the U.S. on a temporary status, and her husband is seeking asylum. They could in theory have applied for Russian citizenship for the baby at the consulate, though Liza told me that would have been risky, in light of her husband’s asylum application.Before January 20, 2025, this would not have been a concern: Although Liza and her husband are Russian citizens, their baby, born on American soil, would have automatically received U.S. citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. But an executive order signed by Donald Trump on the day of his second inauguration had called that guarantee into question. After February 19, according to the order, only children with at least one biological parent who was either a U.S. citizen or a green-card holder could be legally considered American. That would have left Liza’s baby without U.S. citizenship—or citizenship anywhere at all. Liza, who asked that I withhold her last name out of concern for her family’s safety, worried that her child would be entirely without legal protection if she and her husband were deported.“I was really, really anxious,” she said. “I was even blaming myself, like, Why didn’t I have the baby sooner? ” On January 21, Liza and four other expectant mothers joined a lawsuit against the order—one of several challenges to Trump’s decree. (The plaintiffs sued using pseudonyms or only their first names, to protect their identities.) Within days, federal courts blocked the policy from going into effect.[Quinta Jurecic: Trump’s absurd citizenship arguments went nowhere]At the end of June, a year and a half after Trump issued the order, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Barbara that the policy violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Civil-liberties groups and immigration advocates cheered the ruling. Headlines declared it a major loss for Trump. Anna O. Law, a political scientist who studies constitutional law and immigration at CUNY, told me she had been scheduled to join two news broadcasts to discuss the ruling. Once the Court decided against Trump, both canceled because, as one put it, “the danger has passed.”But the Court made its decision by a far… [TheTopNews] Read More.

What in the Dan Sullivan is going on in Alaska? Senator Daniel S. Sullivan is running for reelection. Daniel J. Sullivan is one of his challengers. And former Anchorage Mayor Daniel A. Sullivan recently endorsed the senator, while also declaring himself “the OG Dan Sullivan.”“It’s kind of hilarious,” Daniel K. Sullivan, a 33-year-old diesel mechanic and off-road fabricator from Wasilla, who is not running for Senate, told me.“I got a chuckle out of it,” Daniel P. Sullivan, a longtime teacher from Nome, who is also not on the ballot, told me.Control of the Senate could come down to a ranked-choice ballot that currently includes two Dan Sullivans (the Republican incumbent and the Republican challenger) and one Mary Peltola (a Democrat who was the state’s former at-large congresswoman). Republicans are worried that voters could be confused about which Dan Sullivan to select. Theories abound: Is this some sort of nefarious political plot by the Democrats? Or is it just that there are so many Dan Sullivans in the state that something like this was bound to happen?To get at the question, I reached out to half a dozen Dan Sullivans who appear to live in Alaska.I caught a second Daniel P. Sullivan, this one from Chugiak, while he was driving on a remote gravel road the other day. “The Dan Sullivan thing” has become a common topic of conversation, he told me, and his co-workers call him “the senator.” So many Dan Sullivans live in Alaska that his firearms purchases require a deeper background check. “So I don’t get mistaken for another Dan Sullivan,” he explained. (He said that he’s planning to move next summer so likely won’t vote for either of the Dan Sullivans: “Not really fair to vote when the outcome doesn’t affect me.”)Daniel F. Sullivan, a registered nurse, called me back from Palmer. “I often joke that I’m the real Dan Sullivan, and those are all imposters,” he told me. He said he grew up in New York with another Dan Sullivan in his high school, who was a better student than he was: “My parents would sometimes get honor-roll letters in the mail. I always wondered if his parents got all the bad letters about skipping school.”In Alaska, he found that his name had even greater benefits. A few years back, he had workers out to fix the electronic system in his hot tub, and the bill… [TheTopNews] Read More.

For Carlos Alemán, the pinnacle of the dozen years since he became a U.S. citizen was the night in 2020 when he was elected to serve on the city council of Homewood, Alabama. One of the lowest moments came earlier this year, when he learned that some of the most powerful people in his state are attempting to ban immigrants like him from pursuing higher office.“It seems to be part of a project to reject anyone who’s not born in this country as not worthy or deserving of the full rights of citizenship,” Alemán, who was born in Nicaragua, told me.For most of American history, becoming a citizen has meant acquiring the right to participate in virtually all aspects of civic life, including voting, serving on juries, and mounting a campaign for any political office other than the presidency. But in Alabama and other states across the country, Republican lawmakers are now pushing to make an important distinction: Naturalized citizens, they argue, should not have the same right to serve in public office as someone born in the United States.In recent months, an idea once confined to the fringes has gained mainstream traction across the country. Republican legislators in several states have introduced proposals that would restrict naturalized citizens and dual citizens from running for a range of elected positions, including sheriff and governor. In Congress, at least five Republicans have sponsored various proposals to bar naturalized or dual citizens from serving in roles including federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, and ambassadorships, and in Congress itself. Florida lawmakers this year enacted a law requiring candidates for several state and federal offices to disclose whether they hold another citizenship in addition to being a citizen of the United States.The movement has been fueled in part by the rise of a new class of foreign-born politicians—most prominently New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Ugandan-born son of parents of Indian extraction, whose ascent has become a favorite target of the right. His victory, along with the success of other progressive candidates born outside the U.S., has come to symbolize something dangerous in the eyes of President Trump’s MAGA base: the ability of people born elsewhere to acquire American citizenship and the possibility of political power. Now Republican lawmakers are pledging to do something about it.The push began in parallel to Mamdani’s rise. When Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen first floated the idea… [TheTopNews] Read More.

Updated at 1:40 p.m. ET on August 26, 2026.For months, President Trump has been unable to bring the conflict with Iran to a close. A massive bombing campaign lost its effectiveness, and U.S. munitions supplies ran low. Diplomacy lagged, as leaders in Tehran remained content to deliberately prolong the process and harden their control over the Strait of Hormuz. Even the current pseudo-cease-fire—as deeply uneasy as it is—has done little to meaningfully lower the cost of energy around the globe.With few options remaining, the Trump administration has settled into a potentially lengthy campaign of economic pressure, pledging to squeeze Iran until its leaders have no choice but to seriously return to negotiations. But that tack could prove toothless if the U.S. doesn’t also punish the nations that still do business with Iran and keep its economy afloat—and Trump has historically shown little willingness to stand up to the likes of China and Russia, or even North Korea, which has a strategic alliance with Tehran.If nothing else, the new approach allows the White House to say it’s trying something and then—importantly—to stop talking about the war. Part of the plan, Trump advisers and allies tell us, is to try to push Iran to the background, while hoping that gas prices come down even a little and that Republicans can shift the nation’s focus to more politically palatable topics ahead of the midterms.That won’t change the reality on the ground in the Middle East: Alliances have been strained, the U.S. military has been overtaxed, and Iran wields far more power in the region than it did at the beginning of the war, about six months ago. But it could allow Trump, a master of distraction, to turn to other priorities—a trade war with Canada! Claims of election fraud! His skill at flagpoles!—to try to save at least one chamber of Congress for his party this fall.“We’re just trying to hang on until the midterms,” one Trump adviser told us.At this moment, strategists in both parties believe that the Democrats are favored to capture the House. And despite a GOP-friendly Senate map, the upper chamber is viewed as a toss-up. Trends were already working against Republicans: Traditionally, the party out of power tends to do well in the midterms, and over the past decade, Trump supporters have seemed less inclined to vote when his name isn’t on the ballot. The president hasn’t done… [TheTopNews] Read More.

Imagine that it’s October 2026, and one of Germany’s 16 federal states has come under the control of a far-right government for the first time since the Nazi era. With an absolute majority in the state Parliament and one of its own installed as state premier, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, quickly begins implementing its agenda. The interior minister announces an emergency remigration program: abolishing asylum, revoking the residence permit of any foreigner convicted of a crime, pledging to review all naturalization decisions made during this century, and incarcerating those designated for deportation. The government stops classifying Ukrainians as war refugees and ends their social benefits. European Union flags disappear from public buildings. The mainstream press is shunned in favor of influencers aligned with the party’s ideology. The government authorizes vigilante groups to act as an auxiliary police force in regions with high crime rates.This hasn’t happened, but it’s not merely hypothetical either. The AfD is projected to win an election next month in Saxony-Anhalt, a central German state of some 2 million people. An anti-racism NGO in Berlin, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, created this scenario based on the far-right party’s own election manifesto and the statements of its representatives. For decades, right-wing politics have carried particular weight in Germany, where atonement for the Holocaust includes mandatory education about the rise of National Socialism. The far right was long relegated to the fringes, its most ardent members easily identified as skinheads decked out in leather. But the AfD, founded in 2013 as a mild euroskeptic party led mostly by conservative economists opposed to eurozone bailouts, is now Germany’s most important right-wing force since the Nazis.At the national level, the AfD is the most popular party, supported by more than a quarter of voters in recent polls. It leads both of the traditional broad-based parties, the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats. Its base of support is in the formerly Communist east—generally poorer, older, and angrier than the rest of Germany. And that’s where it’s poised for a breakthrough later this summer. In past state elections, other parties have contorted themselves to keep the far-right faction out of governing coalitions, maintaining a so-called firewall even when the AfD has won the most votes. That may not be possible in Saxony-Anhalt, where ahead of a September 6 vote, the AfD is polling at more than 40 percent. If smaller… [TheTopNews] Read More.