American Samoans cannot vote today but new court case seeks to establish full citizen rights

From Ballot Access News:

Theodore Olson has become the attorney for a group of plaintiffs who were born in America Samoa, and thus are not citizens unless they go through the naturalization process. The case has already lost in the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Olson joined the case and has won permission from the U.S. Supreme Court to file the cert petition by February 1, 2016 (otherwise, the cert petition would have been due January 2, 2016).

The Samoans include residents of the various states. They cannot vote, unless they use the naturalization process. See this story. Persons born in other territories are citizens because Congress passed laws long ago making them citizens, but Congress has never done that for American Samoans. The plaintiffs argue that the 14th amendment makes them citizens automatically. The 14th amendment says, “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.”

Olson represented George W. Bush in Bush v Gore in 2000. See this story. The case is Tuaua v U.S.