They were born on U.S. soil, are entitled to U.S. passports and allowed to serve in the U.S. military, but 11 people in a small Alaska town are facing criminal charges after they tried to participate in a fundamental part of American democracy: voting.
Whats especially fucked is that a federal judge ruled their lack of citizenship unconstitutional many years ago, but it was overturned.
Just give these folks citizenship already. Its insane
There is an interesting Radio Lab episode about this. There is/was actually a large part of the population who don’t want citizenship. If they did that then the constitution would have to apply to the island, and a few parts of it apparently clash with their heritage. I can’t remember all of it, it’s complicated but I remember the episode was interesting.
https://radiolab.org/podcast/americanish