Birthright citizenship in the United States was never a bureaucratic detail or an immigration loophole. It was a direct assault on white supremacy’s original theory of the nation—that Black presence was permissible only as labor, never as belonging. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment sought to end that theory for good. That amendment did not just welcome formerly enslaved Black people into the civic body; it attempted to inoculate the Constitution itself against the return of caste. Yet white supremacy, in every generation, finds new ways to renegotiate the boundaries of who counts as fully American. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the consolidated case challenging lower-court rulings that struck down Trump’s attempt to repeal birthright citizenship. This signals that the highest court in the land is willing to consider whether whiteness may once again serve as the gatekeeper of America’s future. Timothy Benston of The Black Eye Substack writes that if this administration and this Court seek to restore whiteness as the measure of full belonging, they must face resistance equal to the enormity of that threat.

Northeast India’s conflicted state of Nagaland, on the Burmese border, is seeing a mass public outcry against long-standing emergency measures in the wake of an army massacre of civilian mine workers. Army and paramilitary troops laid an “ambush” on a truck on a rural road, opening fire when it failed to stop. Troops apparently believed the truck was carrying a unit of one of the militant groups that have for generations waged an insurgency seeking independence for Nagaland. In fact, the truck was carrying coal miners returning from work. At least 14 were killed. The massacre sparked an immediate upsurge among the villagers of the area, who vented their rage at the security forces. Since the bloody incident, the state has seen continuing protests and strikes demanding repeal of India’s 1958 Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives the military broad power to use deadly force without judicial review. A special report for CounterVortex from reporter Nava Thakuria in Northeast India.