Rights of Belonging as Citizenship Rights

This paper considers the question of whether it is wise, or just, to root equality rights in the concept of citizenship.Scholars who argue in favor of doing so view citizenship as an inclusive concept, pursuant to which people are entitled to fundamental human rights simply because they are members of our national polity. 2 Others point out the exclusionary nature of rooting rights in citizenship, the danger that only United States citizens, and not other people who live in this country, will be entitled to individual rights.3 The inherent problem with linking rights to citizenship is that it may create a dichotomy between two classes of people -citizens and non-citizens.Members of Congress have often invoked the concept of citizenship when enacting legislation defining and protecting what I call "rights of belonging," those rights that promote an inclusive vision of who belongs to the national community of the United States and that facilitate equal membership in that community.4 That tradition dates back to the Reconstruction Era, when members of Congress expanded the national polity to include freed slaves and gave themselves the power to protect the individual rights of people within their jurisdiction.Making newly freed slaves "citizens" had an important symbolic value for members of the Reconstruction Congress.Members of that Congress believed that being a United States citizen entitled one to the enjoyment of the fundamental human rights that slaves had been theretofore denied.